How wonderful it is to watch a bird fly. It is even more wonderful to watch and see how birds in flights perform certain stunts and maneuvers in the air, and still be in control of their bodies without being weary, worn or worked out! A bird can do all that while in and out of flight. It can comfortably perch on a tree branch, take-off in a jiffy, fly up to the highest points and sometimes out of our sights, a bird can twist and turn over in flight, it can soar within the skies, the bird can go on to suspend itself in a flight, then suddenly nose-dive all the way down to the Earth, and finally perch back on a tree! This thus goes to show how much control of its body over the air, a bird has. Indeed, birds have been flying and doing all of the above wonders before the eyes of men, from the beginning of God’s creation; ever since man started recording the events of happenings in time. Even fossils of birds indicate that the avian beings have been in flight for hundreds of centuries.

This chronology often shows how these marvelous creations use their edge over men to display certain characteristics that still remain such an impossibility to man; and this advantage of birds which they use in flight movements to migrate to other continents as far away as they may be, is one ability that man can never possess until the end of time. Until man later realized that he had no ability for flight like birds because he wasn’t created that way. However, looking at a bird in flight critically over the years, it has come to man’s understanding that birds’ flights are products of their body structures. All that makes up a bird makes a bird; that consequently helps it in flight. Birds differ from others in the famed animal kingdom with two Fs: Feathers and Fastness. These two characteristics are part of the reason why flights are easy for bird, and why they are always able to depart in a hurry. Even their breath is fast due to their fast heart beats.

Birds enjoy their flights for so many reasons. Their warm-blooded nature ensures that their internal temperature remains intact in the face of changing external temperature. A bird’s flight is further aided by the design of its feathers although not all birds can fly but majority do. These feathers are light weighted but very tough textured and flexible enough to undergo short and long flights. While some among them can sustain in flights of several thousands of miles, others can only go a few miles. A bird’s beak and feet are two features that cannot be ignored in keeping the overall weight of a bird in flight. The bird’s mouth does not contain teeth and jawbones, but rather uses the beak also called bill. The feet of birds however vary in type and size for different functions like those of chicken and geese. Some are webbed for swimming in addition to flight, while others are not. Since ultimate light weight is needed by birds to fly, everything about their body structure has to conform to this requirement.

The whole body of a bird is made for ease of flight and as such, the bone or skeletal structure of birds carries a lower amount of bones than normal animals. The breast and shoulder bones are the biggest bones in birds and not only do they carry a lesser number of bones compared to humans and animals; they also have few muscles with the biggest and the strongest of them used for flights. Folk tales always make reference to how birds’ flights help them quickly evacuate their families and selves from danger scenes and even go ahead to tell tales of how they borrow their feathers to animals like the tortoise who stick them to their bodies and make a quick getaway from such trouble zones. In real life, man has come to associate certain birds with their strength and character in flight. For example, the eagle symbolizes power, while owls imply wisdom. Doves are a symbol of peace as pigeons indicate love.