CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure

Wildlife highlight of the day

(7221 posts)

  1. gembo
    Member

    @unhurt, you wouldn’t know what the verb is for the way pigeons coast a thermal would ya?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  2. chdot
    Admin

    This might be your answer -

    https://www.quora.com/How-do-eagles-find-thermal-columns-to-soar-on

    But pigeons?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  3. unhurt
    Member

    I don't think pigeons do thermals do they? They're just very direct, active fliers? My Collins Bird App doesn't use any special terms..

    Posted 4 years ago #
  4. gembo
    Member

    Err no, they flap a little then they coast and glide - it has a name

    Posted 4 years ago #
  5. minus six
    Member

    boar on the floor !

    Posted 4 years ago #
  6. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    This is insane. Pigeons do the whole steep arc with overhead wing clapping followed by a glide down with the tail raised. We all know it.

    Cease talk of thermals.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  7. minus six
    Member

    there's a pigeon in my yard, we call him father dougal

    thinks he's regal on the swoop, but he ain't no king of thermal

    Posted 4 years ago #
  8. unhurt
    Member

    This is insane. Pigeons do the whole steep arc with overhead wing clapping followed by a glide down with the tail raised. We all know it.

    Display flight. Gembo is THAT what you were trying to get at? That's just a pigeon sexy flight.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  9. Frenchy
    Member

    Dozen or so crows holding choir practice outside the kirk in Gilmerton. All of them, perfectly synchronised caw-cawing.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  10. gembo
    Member

    It is display but not jiggy as they do it all the time, oh wait.....

    Posted 4 years ago #
  11. unhurt
    Member

    Pigeons will be at it all year if there's enough food for their weans.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  12. ejstubbs
    Member

    @gembo: "they flap a little then they coast and glide - it has a name"

    Digging around a bit online, it appears that there is a term "flap-gliding" flight aka "intermittent undulating" flight, for which starlings are an example.

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022519312001956

    Many birds use a flight mode called undulating or flap-gliding flight, where they alternate between flapping and gliding phases... Among birds, flap-gliding is commonly used by medium to large species, where it is regarded to have a lower energetic cost than continuously flapping flight.

    Does that sound like what you have in mind?

    There is also "bounding flight": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_flight#Bounding_flight but that Wiki article give the impression that it's only a small bird thing (there's slo-mo video clips online of tits, sparrows and the like doing it). Since it involves closing the wings during the non-flapping phase - during which phase the bird's flight trajectory is basically ballistic, with a small amount of body-generated lift - it's likely not what you're thinking of re. wood pigeons.

    Both of the above flights types seem to fall within a general category of "intermittent flight".

    Posted 4 years ago #
  13. gembo
    Member

    @ejstubbs yes those words have stirred the recesses of the mind of Mrs Garto to remember the word which is Dnnn-dnnn-dnnn the Bernoulli Effect. WHich may well not be the way pigeons fly but is the exact term Mrs Garto told me when she was teaching flight then denied all knowledge of

    May well be how all birds fly and aero planes fly

    Whereas display is the pigeon particular thing. Though is intermittent undulating with an added swoop.

    See Also pigeons that are Tumblers

    Posted 4 years ago #
  14. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Eagles fly by sheer force of will. Fact.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  15. gembo
    Member

    Yes the Force is strong with the Aquila

    Posted 4 years ago #
  16. ejstubbs
    Member

    @gembo: Bernoulli's Principle can be used to help understand lift generated by any airfoil (including lift generated by a bird with its wings closed - akin to lifting body aircraft) or thrust using a propellor. However, it is often explained incorrectly, in particular using the fallacious "equal transit time" argument. Newton's Second Law is also relevant (to put it simply, a surface at an oblique angle to the direction of flow of a fluid will deflect the flow of the fluid causing a resultant force).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)#Simplified_physical_explanations_of_lift_on_an_airfoil

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)#Alternative_explanations,_misconceptions,_and_controversies

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli%27s_principle#Misunderstandings_about_the_generation_of_lift

    A lot of what gets taught/demonstrated in schools under the heading of "Bernoulli's Principle" can be pretty dodgy and often plain wrong:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli%27s_principle#Misapplications_of_Bernoulli's_principle_in_common_classroom_demonstrations

    Bottom line: as so often in life, the reality is pretty complicated. Especially with a flapping wing which generates both lift and thrust. Fortunately, the people whose job it is to design machines which need to generate aerodynamic lift and/or thrust generally have an adequate grasp of the subject (though they do tend to stick to rigid airfoils, albeit frequently involving geometries that can be varied within the overall duration of a flight e.g. wing flaps, slots etc).

    Fortunately for them, birds - with the exception of some flightless species - have the necessary knowledge programmed in.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  17. gembo
    Member

    Coal tits, blue tits, greenfinch and sparras all flying through the garden,

    The two big ugly pigeons with their tiny heads just waddling around pecking at something? Just asking to be shot

    Posted 4 years ago #
  18. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Just asking to be shot

    It's the blank-eyed waddling. The staunchest vegan dreams of tertiary ballistics.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  19. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Stock dove on the garden wall. An under-reported bird that one. Also one with a properly proportioned head.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  20. gembo
    Member

    Big bright bullfinch in the afternoon, a blackbird and a magpie to complete today’s batch/

    I like an elegant Collared dove smaller slim body so head maybe a better size, only bred in UK in 1955?

    My pal who lives out the back of broxburn bought some white doves and a dovecote.

    Over time the white vanished as they bred with the pigeons. Not fussy

    Posted 4 years ago #
  21. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Collared dove stated expanding from the Balkans in 1935 and no one knows why? They don't look fascist at all. Quite the opposite.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  22. Rosie
    Member

    The collared dove has an elegant, Continental look compared to our wood and city pigeon oafs.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  23. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    I'd quite a suit made of collared dove. Well, the same colour.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  24. gembo
    Member

    Silvery grey?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  25. neddie
    Member

    Spotted this on the Innocent path. Alive. About 3 inches long

    Anyone know what it is?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  26. gowgowuk
    Member

    A newt. Which species (smooth, palmate?), I don't know!

    Posted 4 years ago #
  27. unhurt
    Member

  28. gembo
    Member

    Wren just came to say hello. The birdies are I think on good form at the moment

    Posted 4 years ago #
  29. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Yes. Coal tit close and curious as we sat oot. Sparrowhawk displaying. Gull chasing soaring buzzard. All this in the burbs.

    I think birds like the calm and quiet.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  30. bill
    Member

    Pheasant galavanting in the middle of an empty road.
    Lots of woodpecker sounds along my way.

    And domesticated ones: LAMBS. So cute.

    Posted 4 years ago #

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