Do birds fly in IMC ?

[RFguy]

Do local or migratory birds fly in IMC where there is absolutely no ground fix ?

 

It's a serious question, 

 

[pmccarthy]

My search result: According to the Audubon Society, birds are VFR creatures and do not intentionally fly into clouds. They have more common sense than some pilots and ground themselves on foggy days. (Small birds occasionally do get caught in IMC and fly into tall buildings, as do some pilots.)

[rgmwa]

I wonder about the Wandering Albatross. They spend many weeks flying day and night over water and you would think they might get caught in IMC. Even night flying would be tricky.  I suppose they could land but taking off from rough water wouldn’t be easy. Interesting question.

[FlyBoy1960]

https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/60164/do-birds-ever-fly-in-clouds

 

[spacesailor]

The Canadian geese fly,s all the way to Europe.

Bound to get some IMC, sometime.

BUT l,ve never witness it !. LoL

spacesailor

[facthunter]

Migratory birds fly such long distances that they must operate without visual references at times. It's suggested they sense the earth's magnetic field for reference. Frigate birds and the albatross stay away from land for long periods. Some birds migrate across the Himalaya's Nev

[onetrack]

Birds take every opportunity to land on ships when the weather is poor - and there's a surprisingly large number of boats out there in the oceans, at any one time.

 

My middle nephew bought himself a 61' Riviera flybridge cruiser from Sydney about 3 yrs ago and flew over to Sydney from Perth and then drove it home - mostly because it was much cheaper than trucking it.

 

They were churning along through the Bight, many dozens of NM's offshore, at good rate of knots from the 2 x 1000HP Cat engines, at about 2:00AM, when the nephew did a walk-around the outer decking to get some exercise.

 

He spotted an unrecognisable dark shape apparently draped over the top railing - and thought it was a towel or a rag, one of his 2 shipmates had hung there earlier. He reached out to pick it up in the gloom - and it promptly pecked him! 

 

He got the shock of his life, when he realised it was a bird just sitting there, having a rest! The bird didn't fly off, he/she was quite content to sit there, and it was obvious it was something it had done a considerable amount of, previously.

[Bennyboy320]

From personal experience my most memorable of about half a dozen bird strikes AT NIGHT over 40+ years was when I was on descent passing 8,000’ doing 250 KTS when we heard a loud thud, obviously we hit something. Once we taxied onto the parking bay the engineers first words were WFT happened to you guys? there was large hole in the Radom with the associated blood, guts & feathers splattered all over the weather radar, this required an ASR & unscheduled overnight stay. 

[onetrack]

I know swans will fly at night, on clear moonlit nights. There have been numerous stories of swans slamming into CGI roofs in the outback, on homestead and pub roofs, when the reflected moonlight off the roofs obviously tricked the swans into thinking the roofs were sheets of water. I understand geese and ducks will also fly at night on migratory trips.

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by onetrack

[kgwilson]

I have come across birds flying at night but have never been able to identify them. Of course Owls fly at night all the time.

 

The Wandering Albatross is the master of dynamic soaring and spends its entire life at sea except when breeding. They fly along waves very low to get lift and circle the globe above the Southern Ocean. They have a wingspan of up to 3.5 metres and tagged ones have covered 120,000 km in a single year. Given the crap weather in the Southern Ocean you can pretty much guarantee they fly in IMC.

[Flightrite]

I think a birds version of IMC is nothing like us humans, in fact they wouldn't know the difference as they don't have CASA to deal with:-)

[spacesailor]

In Old London town,

All birds had to fly in the thick fog, & it was so thick ' you couldn't see your hand i  front of your face ' .

How many times have you seen fog/mist over the waterways.

spacesailor

[RFguy]

Its known that homing pigeons have magetometers in their brains. put that together with the sun, a couple of good stars, that's probably all they need.

 

Yeah I was curious if migratory, or long flight birds could flight S&L in IMC, and how long for.

 

When I first started travelling to the equatorial northern hemisphere, and overcast conditions, I found it maddening that I could not surely determine east and west etc in a cityscape where  I had no visible horizon (buildings) and the SUN was in the wrong place (its in the south!) , in a diffuse, overcast sky.