This is Bird Note. Looking at a Canada goose, you might not think their bodies are designed for fancy flying.

But watch as a flock of geese comes in for a landing at a lake, and you might be surprised.

If the flock comes in too fast or too high above the water, geese have a little trick to slow themselves down for a safe landing.

The geese stop flapping and then quickly roll their bodies upside down while twisting their long necks the right way up.

Finally, they rotate again to right themselves just in time to gently splash down. It's a maneuver called whiffling. The trick

seems to let the geese rapidly decrease their speed and altitude. It's a bit like the flaps

on the wing of a passenger jet

that extend to slow the plane down, but much more dramatic.

Several goose species and some ducks have been seen whiffling,

as well as much smaller shorebirds such as yellow legs and godwits.

Whiffling might help migrating geese fly fast

until the last possible moment.

Or it could just be for fun.

It turns out that geese are built for speed

and tricky maneuvers.

For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein.