List Of Birds By Flight Speed - Wikipedia

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Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by editing the page to add missing items, with references to reliable sources.

This is a list of the fastest flying birds in the world. A bird's velocity is necessarily variable; a hunting bird will reach much greater speeds while diving to catch prey than when flying horizontally. The bird that can achieve the greatest airspeed is the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), able to exceed 320 km/h (200 mph) in its dives.[1][2] A close relative of the common swift, the white-throated needletail (Hirundapus caudacutus), is commonly reported as the fastest bird in level flight with a reported top speed of 169 km/h (105 mph). This record remains unconfirmed as the measurement methods have never been published or verified. The record for the fastest confirmed level flight by a bird is 111.5 km/h (69.3 mph) held by the common swift.[3]

Birds by flying speed

[edit]

Common name	Image	Species	Family	Average horizontal speed	Maximum horizontal speed	Maximum airspeed	Remark
Peregrine falcon		Falco peregrinus	Falconidae	65–90 km/h40–56 mph[4]	110 km/h68 mph[4]	389 km/h242 mph[5]	High-speed dive—pointed long wings
Saker falcon		Falco cherrug	Falconidae	150 km/h93 mph[6]	320 km/h200 mph[7]	High-speed dive—pointed long wings
Golden eagle		Aquila chrysaetos	Accipitridae	45–51 km/h28–32 mph[8]	129 km/h80 mph[8]	322 km/h200 mph[8]
Grey-headed albatross		Thalassarche Chrysostoma	Diomedeidae	127 km/h79 mph[9][10][note 1]	2.2 m (7 ft 3 in) wingspan allows for high power use from wind.
Gyrfalcon		Falco rusticolus	Falconidae	80–100 km/h50–62 mph	145 km/h90 mph[11]	187–209 km/h116–130 mph[12]	High-speed dive—pointed long wings
White-throated needletail		Hirundapus caudacutus	Apodidae	169 km/h105 mph[3] [note 2]	169 km/h105 mph	High-speed wings
Common swift		Apus apus	Apodidae [13]	111.6 km/h69.3 mph[3]	166 km/h103 mph	High-speed wings
Eurasian hobby		Falco subbuteo	Falconidae[14]	159 km/h99 mph	Can sometimes outfly the swift as it eats them and catches them on the wing.
Frigatebird		Fregata	Fregatidae[15]	153 km/h95 mph	Slow gliding/soaring high aspect ratio
Spur-winged goose		Plectropterus gambensis	Anatidae[16]	143 km/h89 mph	High-speed wings
Red-breasted merganser		Mergus serrator	Anatidae[17]	130 km/h81 mph	High–aspect ratio wings
Canvasback		Aythya valisineria	Anatidae[18]	128 km/h80 mph	High-speed wings
Common eider		Somateria mollissima	Anatidae[19]	123 km/h76 mph	High-speed wings
Eurasian teal		Anas crecca	Anatidae	97 km/h60 mph	High–aspect ratio wings
Anna's hummingbird		Calypte anna	Trochilidae	56 km/h35 mph[20]	70 km/h43 mph	Rapidly-beating wings

See also

[edit]

• List of birds by flight heights

Note

[edit]

1. ^ Sustained ground speed for approximately nine hours with no rest on high tailwinds during an Antarctic storm.
2. ^ The BBC warns against taking this value too seriously, as the methods employed to measure it have never been published, rendering its verification difficult.[citation needed]

References

[edit]

1. ^ "Basic Facts About Peregrine Falcon". Defenders of Wildlife. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
2. ^ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (January 15, 2008). "All About the Peregrine Falcon". Department of the Interior. Archived from the original on 2008-04-16. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
3. ^ a b c Bourton, Jody (2 March 2010). "Supercharged swifts take flight speed record". BBC Earth News. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
4. ^ a b "Fastest on Earth: Malik fuel". Extreme Science. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
5. ^ Harpole, Tom (March 2005). "Falling with the Falcon". Air & Space magazine. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
6. ^ "The Saker Falcon in Austria". Retrieved 27 December 2020.
7. ^ "Saker Falcon". 2020. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
8. ^ a b c Kirschbaum, Kari; Ivory, Alicia (2002). "Aquila chrysaetos golden eagle". The Animal Diversity Web. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
9. ^ "Guinness Records - Fastest Bird Level Flight". Guinness World Records Limited. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
10. ^ Catry, Paulo; Phillips, Richard A.; Croxall, John P. (2004-10-01). "Sustained Fast Travel by a Gray-Headed Albatross (Thalassarche Chrysostoma) Riding an Antarctic Storm". The Auk. 121 (4): 1208–1213. doi:10.1093/auk/121.4.1208. ISSN 1938-4254.
11. ^ "Gyrfalcon - Animal Ark".
12. ^ Tucker, V. A.; Cade, T. J.; Tucker, A. E. (July 1998). "Diving speeds and angles of a gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus)" (PDF). Journal of Experimental Biology. 201: 2061–2070. PMID 9622578.
13. ^ "swifts". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2013. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
14. ^ Hobby, Falco subbuteo
15. ^ Animal Corner; Sea Birds Frigate Bird Galapagos Sea Birds - The Great Frigate Bird and the Magnificent Frigate Bird
16. ^ Free find Spur-Winged Goose Plectropterus gambensis - Kenya Birds
17. ^ The Cornell lab of Ornithology - Cornell University Bird Guide - Red-breasted Merganser
18. ^ Ducks Unlimited - Wet-lands conversation Canvasback
19. ^ Family XXXIX. Anatinae. Ducks. Family The Eider Duck. [common Eider.] Genus Fuligula mollissima, Linn. [Somateria mollissima.]
20. ^ Clark, C. J.; Dudley, R. (2009). "Flight costs of long, sexually selected tails in hummingbirds". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 276 (1664): 2109–2115. doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0090. PMC 2677254. PMID 19324747.

External links

[edit]

• The world's fastest birds The Travel Almanac
• What Are The Fastest Flying Birds? Blur it

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