Tag Archives: Flight

Owls in Flight: Being Quiet on Purpose

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Owls in Flight:  Being Quiet on Purpose

Dr. James J. S. Johnson

And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you.   (1st Thessalonians 4:11)

Image result for barn owl flight

Barn Owls, like other owls, are aerial predators who hunt by night — quietly.  This airborne silence arms hunting owls with the element of surprise, as has been proven by acoustical studies documented in a BBC video YouTube recording:

[ “Experiment!  How Does an Owl Fly So Silently?  Super Powered Owls”  BBC ]

One of the stellar creation biologists/ecologists, nowadays, is Dr. David Catchpoole, from down under — with years of service as a scientist for the Queensland (Australia) Department of Primary Industries, specializing in tropical fruit tees (especially mango), as well as years of service teaching tropical horticulture at James Cook University.

Once an atheist evolutionist, Dr. Catchpoole is now (and has been for decades) a Bible-believing creation scientist, quick to glorify God for His magnificent creatures.  In a recent article Dr. Catchpoole described how God has designed and bioengineered owls, because they are nocturnal birds of prey, to fly quietly.

If you watch an owl flapping or gliding, it’s like viewing film footage with the sound on ‘mute’ — they are so silent.  That’s because their wings have velvety surfaces, comb-like serrations at the leading edge, and trailing-edge fringes which dramatically suppress the sound of air rushing over the wings.  Therefore the owl’s prey (mice and voles) can be taken by surprise.  Also, with wing noise suppressed to a level below the owl’s own hearing range, they can better hear (and thus locate) prey while flying — crucial for hunting at night. …

Owl wings have already inspired quieter fan blades in computers.  More recently, [biomimetics technology] researchers using wind tunnel facilities have explored these noise suppression characteristics in more detail, especially the leading-edge [single-barb-tipped] serrations.  The owl wing design also efficiently resolves the trade-off between effective sound suppression [needs for surprising prey] and aerodynamic force production [needed for flying]. In striving to understand how, [biomimetics technology] researchers see an ultimate goal of mimicking those design aspects across many man-made technologies.  For example, so the blades of multi-rotor drones can ‘chop’ the air more quietly, without unduly sacrificing lift; similarly in other aircraft, wind turbines, and fluid machinery in general.

[Quoting David Catchpoole, “As Silent as a Flying Owl”, CREATION, 40(2):56 (April-June 2018).]   Although the night-flying Barn Owl doesn’t put out much sound, it does take sound in, through its sensitive hearing system.  In fact, short feathers (near its ears) are designed into grooves (by each ear) that facilitates efficient reception of airborne sound waves (revealing where its prey is) into the owl’s ears!

These owls hear prey well, but their prey do not hear the owls (usually until it’s too late)!

barnowl-wildwatchcams-wa-gov

BARN OWL (Washington Dep’t of Fish & Wildlife)

What can I add to those insights?  Like an owl on the wing, I’ll just be quiet!

 

The Marvelous Flight of Birds — BIRDS AND BEES HIDEOUT

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Bird feathers, though they appear fragile, are actually one of the strongest structures in the animal kingdom. They have allowed birds to become the masters of the air, flying with both speed and grace. As ground dwelling creatures, we’ve admired birds, modeling airplanes after their ingenious design. < Tree sparrows can fly up to 45 […]

via The Marvelous Flight of Birds — BIRDS AND BEES HIDEOUT

“He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.” (Psalms 91:4 KJV)

Enjoy!

The Amazing Mosquito Hawk Video

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Dragonfly cropped by Lee at Circle B

Dragonfly cropped by Lee at Circle B

“Does the hawk fly by your wisdom, And spread its wings toward the south?
(Job 39:26 NKJV)

Flight is a big problem for those who believe that we owe our existence to evolution. Birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, and even some fish fly or at least glide through the air in controlled flight. So many different creatures fly that evolutionists must say that flight evolved several different times.

The dragonfly is among the best fliers in the animal kingdom. The dragonfly can beat its four wings in unison or separately depending on the maneuver it wants to make. Dragonflies can fly at speeds up to 25 miles an hour and even faster. They can hover, take off backward and even make an unbanked turn. The dragonfly eats small insects, including mosquitoes, earning it the nickname “mosquito hawk.” A dragonfly can see a gnat from three feet away, fly to it, capture it and return to its original position in just over one second! One third to one half of its body mass is made up of flight muscles. Its two eyes have a total of 60,000 lenses and are situated so that its range of vision is nearly 360 degrees.

Dragonfly by Raymond Barlow

Dragonfly by Raymond Barlow

Dragonflies not only appear in the fossil record fully formed, but in much greater variety than today. One fossilized dragonfly was the size of a crow! Even the United States Air Force has studied the dragonfly to learn how it flies. The dragonfly is no product of natural selection. It is clearly a specially designed creature whose Designer understands flight better than we do. This Designer is our Creator God.

Prayer: I thank You, dear Father, for the beauty and wonder of the dragonfly. You are truly to be glorified! In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Notes: Richard Conniff, “The Lord of Time”, Reader’s Digest, 6/99, p. 142. Photo: Close-up of a dragonfly head. Courtesy of Victor Korniyenko. (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

©Creation Moments Published on Jan 23, 2015

This topic from Creation Moments has been posted before, but this time they did it with a video. Trust you will find this amazing. Our Lord has shown his Great Wisdom again in the Dragonflies design.

Creation Moments’ – Designed For Flight

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Peregrine Falcon Flying Over Niagara Falls

Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, [and] stretch her wings toward the south? Job 39:26

Many textbooks tell young people today that birds are modified reptiles. Suppose, they say, that millions of years ago the scales on some reptiles began to fray along the edges. In time, they say, the frayed scales turned into feathers and birds were born.

Designed for Flight The elegance and beauty of the feather make this story hard to believe. Can sticking a feather on a lizard produce a peacock? The bird’s feather is only a small part of the complete flying system of the bird. Even with very careful planning and redesigning, a reptile doesn’t have what it takes.

A bird needs massive breast muscles for flight. In some birds, 30 percent of the body weight of the bird is breast muscle. By comparison, in humans, breast muscles are only about 1 percent of body weight. A bird also needs an extremely high metabolism and blood pressure to deliver the energy those muscles need for flight. Birds have a higher metabolism than any other creature; they also have the necessary high blood pressure. Finally, as is well known, birds need light skeletons. The man-o’-war has a wingspan of seven feet. But its entire skeleton weighs only a few ounces – less than its feathers!

Even the most clever rebuilding of a reptile cannot produce a bird. In fact, birds have very little in common with reptiles. The entire being of the bird, from body to brain, has been specially designed for flight by a Creator who clearly knows everything there is to know about flight.

Prayer:
Father in heaven, the beauty, grace and huge variety of birds You have created are some of the most beautiful creatures on earth. As I thank You for them, fill me with new wonder over the wonderful work of Your hands. Amen.

Notes:
Vandeman, George. 1991. “The miracle of flight.” Signs of the Times, May. p. 25.

Designed For Flight ©Creation Moments 2014

Interesting Things

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Interesting Things – Dragonfly (from Creation Moments)

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Dragonfly by Phil Kwong

Dragonfly by ©Phil Kwong

Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD. (Psalm 34:11 )

Evolutionary naturalism paints the picture of life as if it were a haphazard series of accidents that just barely resulted in a range of living things that just manage to survive. This fanciful picture destroys our sense of wonder over the sophisticated engineering designs in nature.

SmileyCentral.com

Consider the mystery of flight, for example. Some evolutionists suggest that perhaps birds are descended from lizards that fell out of trees a lot. Other evolutionists say that birds came from lizards who grew wings, not for flight but to chase down and catch insects. Yet, they have little to say about the fact that we humans have come by most of our sophisticated knowledge about flight from studying the birds.

Then there is the problem, for the evolutionist, of how flight accidentally evolved so many times for so many creatures. Scientists studying the dragonfly are learning even more secrets of flight. Our best high-performance aircraft can barely lift themselves off the ground. However, the dragonfly can lift 15 times his own weight into the air. Scientists have learned that this is because the dragonfly’s wings are designed to create little whirlwinds over their top surfaces. These whirlwinds are the secret to creating incredible lifting power. Ways are now being planned to apply this secret to new aircraft designs.

Dragonfly by ©Raymond Barlow

Dragonfly by ©Raymond Barlow

The engineering excellence found in nature and from which we have learned so much even in this day of interplanetary probes is not witness to a mindless process of evolution, but to a wise and mindful Creator.

Prayer:
Father, it seems a shame that humans learned about flight from the dragonfly and fail to see a witness to You. Yet, I know that I don’t learn from You as I should, either. Forgive me for Jesus’ sake and make me a better learner. Amen.

Notes:
“Dragonfly model for future wings.” Science Digest, Mar. 1984. p. 87. ©Creation Moments, 2011

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The lessons being learned about the dragonfly’s wings are a good example of:

But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you; And the birds of the air, and they will tell you; (Job 12:7 NKJV)

We can learn much from the critters by learning about how the Lord created them and then applying those lessons to better our lives.

More Interesting Things

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Created to Fly

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Steppe Eagle (Aquila nipalensis) by Peter Ericsson

Steppe Eagle (Aquila nipalensis) by Peter Ericsson

But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:…Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? (Job 12:7, 9)

Here are some excerpts from the Fit for Flight article by Brian Thomas, at the Institute for Creation Research. It is in the August Acts and Facts. To see the whole article, Click Here.

“Birds, for example, were clearly designed for flight and were not formed by any purposeless natural process. The ancient book of Job stated as much: Job 12:7, 9 – above)

  • Some of the required parts for flying birds are visible from the outside, such as wings and an aerodynamic body shape. Other characteristics are less obvious, but equally important.
  • Anything that flies must have a specific power-to-weight ratio.
  • A bird’s center of mass is toward the front, in between its wings.
  • A small but crucial feature on many birds is the alula feather.
  • There are many more specific, required features, like retractable landing gear and horizontal stabilizers, not to mention damage repair mechanisms.”
“And this does not even take into account the beauty of bird flight, bird songs, or their various colorful feathers, which constitute art that demands an Artist who can blend high flights of imagination with the most intricate engineering quality.Surely the great Creator deserves credit for His fantastic handiwork!”

Please check out the article, “Fit for Flight” and also check out the other Acts and Facts articles.

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Interesting Video – Birds and Flight

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White Pelicans in Flight - Circle B Bar by Dan

White Pelicans in Flight - Circle B Bar

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. (Genesis 1:20 KJV)

Just posted an Interesting Video called “Birds and Flight – Design or Mutations“, by Andy McIntosh at the following link in the Plus Pages.

Click Here to view the video.

See also: Birds: fliers from the beginning