There are quite a number of birds that spend their days at the waters of a lagoon such as at our Botanical Gardens.
As well as photographing these birds, one particular aspect that has been of interest to me is how the different birds can take off from the water.
A bird’s flight actually starts from the down-stroke of the wings, then comes the upstroke, and return to the starting point.
The forward sweep of the wings during the down stroke is virtually the impetus that gives a good lifting and is responsible for most of the bird’s lift and push forward.
Most water birds will use their feet in some way to give them extra push.
The photo of the Great Egret (pictured) shows some of the splashing water in the bird’s wake as it leaves the water.
Other long-legged water birds like the Herons and the Jabiru would take off in a similar way.
Some birds like the Pelican need to take quite a few steps with much heavy flapping of its wings before it can get into the air.
Like quite a few of the smaller Water Fowl, Ducks seem to rely more on their wings and almost look like they are taking off vertically.
Another interesting thing that I noted was a pair of Coots drifting lazily along in the water.
Coots are about 35cm long with a black shiny plumage, a white beak and white frontal shield on the face.
Suddenly they both took off together but instead of going up into the air, they stayed about a meter above the water before landing further on. This may have been for protection as Black Kites were circling above.
