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Birds (flying, soaring) – Most of the approximately 10,000 living species can fly (flightless birds are the exception). Bird flight is one of the most studied forms of aerial locomotion in animals. See List of soaring birds for birds that can soar as well as fly. Townsends's big-eared bat, (Corynorhinus townsendii) displaying the "hand wing"
Bird flight is the primary mode of locomotion used by most bird species in which birds take off and fly. Flight assists birds with feeding, breeding , avoiding predators , and migrating . Bird flight includes multiple types of motion, including hovering, taking off, and landing, involving many complex movements.
Flight is the primary means of locomotion for most bird species and is used for breeding, feeding and predator avoidance and escape. Birds have various adaptations for flight, including a lightweight skeleton, two large flight muscles, the pectoralis (which accounts for 15% of the total mass of the bird) and the supracoracoideus, as well as ...
In nature, birds of the same species in flight often form homogeneous groups for various reasons, such as to defend against predators. This behavior of birds has been observed by people since time immemorial, and is the source of the idiom ("of a feather" means "of the same plumage," that is, of the same species).
A kettle is a group of birds wheeling and circling in the air. The kettle may be composed of several different species at the same time. Nature photographer M. Timothy O'Keefe theorizes that the word derives from the appearance of birds circling tightly in a thermal updraft "like something boiling in a cauldron."
Loss of flight allows birds to eliminate the costs of maintaining various flight-enabling adaptations like high pectoral muscle mass, hollow bones and a light build, et cetera. [33] The basal metabolic rate of flighted species is much higher than that of flightless terrestrial birds. [ 34 ]
Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight.
The steppe birds are more popular to hunt because they can be flushed into flight, rather than the forest birds that run to cover and hide. In the late 19th and early 20th century hunting was responsible for mass killing within the family, with the elegant crested tinamou and spotted nothura popular targets.