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Your most memorable "flight sequence/action.....? (1 Viewer)

KenM

KenM

Well-known member
I suspect the flight action of birds, is singularly one of the most compelling aspects of birding for most of us, along with their individual cosmetic (that which can change with the play of light), Starlings and Hummers to name but a few.

Regarding the "flight action"....for me..the Peregrine hitting a Pigeon in a lightning stoop..with the victim "exploding" in a cloud of feathers, brutal yet magnificent at the same time, visual ambiguity at it's worst..or best?

At the other extreme, yesterday, I witnessed singularly the most controlled and magnificent flight action that I have ever witnessed. Sitting at elevation on a hot still morning, looking slightly down on a Lorquin's Admiral (butterfly,Portland, Oregon), gliding in a "sustained" perfect 180 degree flight, interspersed with "wing-tip" flicks, whilst the rest of the wing remained perfectly parallel to the ground. Simply awesome!

What's yours?
 
Seeing my first great (Tristan ) Albatross, between the Falklands and Sth. Georgia, powering passed in a force 6, 'without a care in the world'. Unforgettable.

Chris
 
Watching a juvenile Lanner Falcon swooping and harrying a Helmeted Guineafowl in Etosha, Namibia was unforgettable.
 
On our hawk watch a few years ago we had a sharpie take a run at a migrating golden eagle...from underneath. The golden made a quick flight adjustment, grabbed the sharpie out of mid-air, and ripped the head off without slowing its down-ridge migration (the golden's, that is).

To paraphrase yet another Monty Python sketch, "This is an ex-sharpie!"
 
Watching a Merlin chase an Alpine Swift over Cunnisburgh, Shetland was a stunning spectacle from two very accomplished fliers.
 
Keeping the BoP theme going, I saw a pair of Lanner apparently co-operatively hunting Nyanza Swift at Hells Gate NP, Kenya. A female flew along the top of the cliff flushing the swifts in large numbers. The smaller male stooped from high up & hit one at speed which the female then caught / landed on just about as it hit the ground. At the same time a Gymnogene was picking another swift out of the rock crevice in which it had taken refuge.
 
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The courtship flights of long eared owls. The dramatic plunge of a kingfisher into a pond. Kestrels snagging grasshoppers out of a meadow. A thousand starlings repeatedly turning on a dime. A flicker swooping in and grabbing carpenter ants from between the legs of a hard working pileated woodpecker.
 
Forgot an obvious one: flights of Canada geese heard passing overhead while walking the frozen nighttime streets of a Canadian city, looking up and seeing them crossing the face of the full moon.
 
Watching a hobby chase another hobby out of its territory,all just feet away from me they hurtled past.

Steve.
 
Late January about ten years ago, in a Scottish glen, watching a pair of courting Golden Eagles. The male was about ten feet in front of the female and she copied his every move exactly. He sailed along the ridge sometimes just moving a few feathers to slightly change direction and she did exactly the same movement to track his path to perfection. He then broke off and did a series of closed wing stoops and opened his wings to shoot back up again. All this in a howling gale. The Golden Eagle is a master in those conditions. Effortless.
About a year later in the same glen saw a merlin make about five snatches at a meadow pipit before finally catching it.
Both occasions left me awestruck.
Just being greedy I also love watching skuas in action.
 
During a walk in the Dark Peak in December, along an edge, a party of seven ravens having a whale of a time showing off to each other. There was some displaying, synchronized flying of pairs with the lower bird turning on its back, plummeting dives, and just hanging in the wind.

I watched, spell-bound, for half an hour or so until I risked being stranded in the dark on a day with low cloud, and reluctantly took my leave. Only when I started walking again did I realize that I'd also become quite cold - I was dressed for moving, not standing around.

It's one of those experiences that will stay with me.

Andrea
 
This thread reminds me when I saw a Barn Owl gliding elegantly over a marsh at dusk heading straight for me, locking eyes on me before banking a foot away from my face!!!
 
A different type of BoP for me

Has to be standing under a Raggiana Bird of Pardise lek in Varitea PNG with 8 males flying in an out of the actions doing their full overhead plume displays to a dozen or more females.
Memories of seeing and hearing the display just takes me back there.
 
dandsblair said:
Has to be standing under a Raggiana Bird of Pardise lek in Varitea PNG with 8 males flying in an out of the actions doing their full overhead plume displays to a dozen or more females.
Memories of seeing and hearing the display just takes me back there.
Click to expand...

I was going to say that I couldn't think of anything better to watch than a large lake being criss-crossed by feeding terns and swallows, all flying at top speed. But on balance I have to admit that a bird of paradise lek may just have the edge...
 
Probably filling the feeder hanging from the cotoneaster in my garden and having a sparrowhawk zoom in hoping to snatch a bird from it. She saw me at the last second, spread her wings and tail to come to a halt in the air a few feet from my face and then reversed and flew away at speed while I was hit by the waft of air from her wings. I was left gasping and my heart hammering like mad!
 
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