This is Bird Note.

Watch any backyard bird and you are watching an acrobatic work.

A Robin zooms across your field of vision and reaching a tree appears to go from full-out flight to a dead stop in the wink of an eye.

How come it doesn't crash?

Well, there's several things that are happening at once.

Just before it lands, the Robin raises the angle of its wings higher and higher from the horizontal.

This slows it down and reduces lift.

And the tail can also be fanned and held down adding to the drag at the instant before the bird clamps its feet to the perch.

And Hawks, at high speed, a hawk dives to a bit below where it wants to perch, then pulls into a steep climb slowing its momentum just in time.

While ducks landing on a pond use a combination of raised wings and a bit of hydroplaning like water skiing on their wide webbed feet.

Birds are often admired and envied for possessing the miracle of flight, but breaking just in time, it's a bit of a miracle in itself.

For Bird Note, I'm Mary McCann.

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