Aerial Acrobatics of Cliff Swallows

High-speed video reveals the extreme maneuvers of cliff swallows in flight. The cliff swallow is a migratory bird that repairs and re-uses existing nests on return to North American to breed in the summer. This leads to competition for materials - mostly mud - which results in one swallow chasing another in a spectacular display of aerial acrobatics. Dr. Tyson Hedrick, an Associate Professor in the Biology Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, used high-speed cameras to capture the chase and discovered that there is clever strategy and impressive feats involved. Also, such high speed turns generate g-forces that would make a fighter pilot black out. Understanding how these birds perform may be used to improve the navigation systems of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones.

Related Links

• Paper in The Journal Of Experimental Biology
• Science news article
• Video of swallow flight from Dr. Hedrick's lab