Eric Fitch Daglish writes in Birds of the British Isles that when comparing the flight of mammals and birds “bats have mastered the air within limits but […] no bats are capable of the long, swift sustained flights daily carried out by swifts and albatross.”
Always fascinated by the freedom of birds in flight, their agility, grace, and manoeuvrability, and their use of wings to impress or warn off, here are a few of the pictures I’ve taken in and around Victoria Tower Gardens by the River Thames in London.
This fascination with the agility of birds in the air and how eventually it led to designs of vehicles for human flight, is explored in an article on Aviation Inspired by Birds. The writer explains how Otto Lilienthal undertook meticulous research on birds and airfoils: “His glider designs, inspired by bird wings, paved the way for modern aviation pioneers.”
He goes on to say how the “diversity of wing shapes, each adapted for specific flight styles has served as the basis for different aircraft designs.” And here below, you can perhaps see some of the differences in the wing shapes and arrangement of feathers between the birds I have photographed. However, for professional images, comparisons and text by an expert, click here.
There are sayings and superstitions attached to some birds. Cormorants, for example, are regarded as a good sign in the Norwegian tradition, which says that they are the returning spirits of those lost at sea. Further on, I mention another superstition on the same lines: that seagulls carry the souls of sailors drowned at sea.
Though, of course I have not seen one, and very unlikely to see one along the River Thames, there is the famous tradition – evoked in Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – that to kill an albatross is very unlucky. However, seeing one, or protecting one, is regarded as a sign of good luck.
There is a plethora of superstition surrounding all kinds of birds but in this article I’ve kept to sayings specially associated with water birds.
As well as superstitions concerning cormorants there are also beliefs around sea gulls. Michael Trigg writes: “that gulls have long had a place in seagoing folklore and legends. Ocean sailors have seen the gull as a harbinger of good news, probably because on a long voyage, the sighting of a gull at sea meant land was close.”
Marlin Bree writes: “Old sailors believe that gulls are special — one should never harm a gull. Some even believed that the souls of their departed shipmates were reincarnated as gulls.”
Marlin Bree, who has studied gulls in passing over many years, admires the way, “they are able to shape and reshape their wing angles and even individual feathers for the best aerodynamic effect. They hover, soar the thermals, and then suddenly fold their wings, dive into the water, and instantly become fully aquatic. When they bob up again, they become airborne with just a few powerful flaps of their wings.” If you spend any time by the river, you will see exactly that.
Along with many others, I find watching birds a brief escape from the pressures of the world around us. If the tide is out, the shells and smaller creatures on theVictoria Tower Gardens foreshore are harvested by pigeons, black-backed and herring gulls, and crows. Pigeons, easily alarmed will take to the air together, swirl around and return. Gulls squawk and squabble: juveniles bother their parents for food; older gulls drop shells on hard surfaces below to crack them open; and others dart and dive across the water catching insects. But down by the water’s edge, it seems that crows usually rule, and these intelligent birds often fly up to crack open their booty on the riverside path, leaving empty shells to the puzzlement of some. Occasionally a cormorant will rest on the foreshore its wings outstretched, and if you’re lucky you might see one diving into the water and surfacing with a fish…
Sources and further information
BBC article: ‘The aircraft that may fly like a flock of geese’.
BoatUS: American author ‘Marlin Bree talks about how boaters can coexist with seagulls.’
Daglish, Eric Fitch: Birds of the British Isles, 1948
The Otto Lilienthal Museum
Trigg, Michael: Seagulls – Friend and Foe