African swallow or falcon ..

[HuskyInAuz]

Hopefully this link will work.

http://preview.msn.com/en-us/video/science/fastest-animal-on-earth-outraces-freefalling-skydivers/vi-BB6qgoU

Yes, USA commercial first, but the burgers are better than 'Maccas' ;) IMHO

Heavily into harvest and 'grazier' work but started to rain this avo, so I sat down about 1800 versus the normal time.

Have a few pics to post later and a few observations.

Regards,
Scott

[the evil twin]

Nature truly is amazing eh.

I've seen several doco's on Peregrines on Animal Planet et al and they still aren't sure what they can actually top out at in a dive.
Science is very interested because "mathematically" they shouldn't be able to get anywhere near the terminal speeds they do so the boffins are trying to figure out how they control the air boundary layer to reduce the drag.

In an early doco that I recall they had video of a Falcon diving beside a skydiver in free fall who kept hold of the lure and it was darting all over the palce.
They thought at the time that was around its top controlled speed.
It wasn't, the Falcon was using the swerves to slow down so it didn't overshoot and had about another 100 MPH to go

Also saw a doco a while back on Snipe where tagged birds migrate from northern Europe to Africa with an averaged speed of 60 MPH for over 4,000 miles non stop.
Now that is some serious "fuel economy" eh