[16] BIRDS OF OREGON 



usual. The winter was not exceptionally stormy. Perhaps there were 

 some unfavorable food conditions on the Alaska coast that drove the 

 birds away and especially favorable conditions on the Oregon coast that 

 not only held an abnormal number of the Tufted Puffins and similar birds 

 there but also attracted a greater number of birds of the more northern 

 species. The fact that more records of kills appear in the past three or 

 four winters is not to be taken to indicate a higher mortality than in 

 previous years but rather reflects the fact that we have been in position 

 to make more extensive observations on the coasts. 



SPEED OF FLIGHT 



THE SPEED of flight of birds in their great migratory movements has long 

 been a cause of speculation. Gatke, a German observer on the Island of 

 Helgoland, became obsessed with the idea, induced perhaps by his isolated 

 home, that most birds pass the greatest part of their migratory flight in 

 a single night. On this basis, he estimated that small birds flew 180 to 

 2.40 miles an hour and various shore birds, 2.12. to 2.40. The development 

 of the automobile and the airplane have given us improved methods of 

 measuring the speed of birds. It is apparent from figures thus obtained 

 that the speed of birds in flight has been generally overestimated, although 

 some birds are capable of high speed for at least short distances. 



Wetmore has published records made by timing birds as they flew 

 parallel to automobile roads. He found that such diverse species as 

 herons, hawks, Horned Larks, ravens, and shrikes covered 2.2. to x8 miles 

 an hour in ordinary flight. H. B. Wood found that the rate of speed of 

 the Arkansas Kingbird and the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher varied between 

 10 and 17 miles an hour. All these birds are capable of greater speed in 

 emergencies. Records in England and Europe, obtained in the same 

 manner, show the speed of small birds to be 2.0 to 2.5 miles an hour. 

 Colonel R. Meinertzhagen, from figures obtained from observations with 

 theodolites (instruments also used to estimate the speed of airplanes), 

 stop watches on measured courses, and readings from airplanes, gave the 

 following numbers of miles an hour for common groups of birds: crow 

 family, 31 to 45; small birds, 2.0 to 37; starlings, 38 to 49; geese, 42. to 55; 

 ducks, 44 to 59; falcons, 40 to 48; and sand grouse, 43 to 47. Swifts in 

 Mesopotamia are reported to have circled a plane when it was traveling 

 at 68 miles an hour; and E. C. Stuart Baker timed swifts with stop watches 

 over a course known to be 2. miles long and found that they covered this 

 distance in 36 to 42. seconds, or at the rate of 171 to 2.00 miles an hour. 

 This is by far the highest estimated speed that we have found in modern 

 literature. Various American species of ducks, timed by airplane and by 

 automobile, have been found traveling at 42. to 72. miles an hour. 



