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Birds in flight and accurately clocking their speed

By donaldgkimball, on September 18th, 2011

I remember fondly my trip off to film Scarlet-chested Parrots in South Aus in 2009. On the trip out to the desert along a dirt road I flushed a group of Galahs which flew parrallel with my Nissan Patrol and then up and over the road in front of me and out of sight. If I remember correctly I was doing about 80 KM per hour. In that case the Galahs would have had to have been traveling a bit faster. Does this seem realistic? Has anyone clocked Galahs or other parrots for that matter flying parrallel with their vehicle or by any other means? Just curious here. What if any species do you have information on?

Also when I was watching Princess Parrots in the Gibson flying from one Casuarina to another (you can see this on my DVD series) it seemed that they also were super fast and looked to be going about 100 KM per hour. I would have to come back and measure the distance between the two trees which would be quite an undertaking. But I sure am curious how fast they were going.

Thanks as always!

Don

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1 comment to Birds in flight and accurately clocking their speed

  • Andrew Hobbs
    September 18, 2011 at 11:51 am

    There are a number of references on the internet (Wikipedia etc) and in a few reference books which indicate Galahs have been clocked at 70 km/hr or more. I have seen a few galahs easily outflying and outmanouvring a Hobby. Plus their wing shape is typical of high speed fliers so I would not be surprised at your estimate. The fastest speed clocked for powered horizontal flight is supposed to be 170 km/hr for the White-throated Needletail. Plus of course there are the records for long distance migration. One Bar-tailed Godwit was tracked flying at an average speed of over 60 km/hr non stop for 11600 km (8 days). So having a Galah doing 80 for a short distance shouldn’t be too surprising.

    Andrew

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