List of birds by flight speed

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This is a list of the fastest flying birds in the world. A bird's velocity is necessarily variable; a hunting bird will reach much greater speeds while diving to catch prey than when flying horizontally. The bird that can achieve the greatest airspeed is the peregrine falcon, able to exceed 320 km/h (200 mph) in its dives.[1][2] A close relative of the common swift, the white-throated needletail (Hirundapus caudacutus), is commonly reported as the fastest bird in level flight with a reported top speed of 169 km/h (105 mph). This record remains unconfirmed as the measurement methods have never been published or verified. The record for the fastest confirmed level flight by a bird is 111.5 km/h (69.3 mph) held by the common swift.[3]

## Contents

* 1 Birds by flying speed
* 2 See also
* 3 Note
* 4 References
* 5 External links

## Birds by flying speed

Common name  | Image  | Species  | Family  | Average horizontal speed  | Maximum horizontal speed  | Maximum airspeed  | Remark

|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Peregrine falcon  |  | Falco peregrinus | Falconidae | 65–90 km/h
40–56 mph[4]
| 110 km/h
68 mph[4]
| 389 km/h
242 mph[5]
| High-speed dive—pointed long wings
Saker falcon  |  | Falco cherrug | Falconidae |  | 150 km/h
93 mph[6]
| 320 km/h
200 mph[7] | High-speed dive—pointed long wings
Golden eagle  |  | Aquila chrysaetos | Accipitridae | 45–51 km/h
28–32 mph[8]
| 129 km/h
80 mph[8]
| 322 km/h
200 mph[8]

Grey-headed albatross |  | Thalassarche Chrysostoma | Diomedeidae |  | 127 km/h
79 mph[9][10][note 1]
|  | 2.2 m (7 ft 3 in) wingspan allows for high power use from wind.
Gyrfalcon |  | Falco rusticolus | Falconidae | 80–100 km/h
50–62 mph  | 145 km/h
90 mph[11] | 187–209 km/h
116–130 mph[12] | High-speed dive—pointed long wings
White-throated needletail |  | Hirundapus caudacutus | Apodidae |  | 169 km/h
105 mph[3]

[note 2]

| 169 km/h
105 mph  | High-speed wings
Common swift  |  | Apus apus | Apodidae [13] |  | 111.6 km/h
69.3 mph[3] | 166 km/h
103 mph  | High-speed wings
Eurasian hobby  |  | Falco subbuteo | Falconidae[14] |  |  | 159 km/h
99 mph  | Can sometimes outfly the swift as it eats them and catches them on the wing.
Frigatebird |  | Fregata | Fregatidae[15] |  |  | 153 km/h
95 mph  | Slow gliding/soaring high aspect ratio
Spur-winged goose |  | Plectropterus | Anatidae[16] |  |  | 143 km/h
89 mph  | High-speed wings
Red-breasted merganser |  | Mergus serrator | Anatidae[17] |  |  | 130 km/h
81 mph  | High–aspect ratio wings
Canvasback |  | Aythya valisineria | Anatidae[18] |  |  | 128 km/h
80 mph  | High-speed wings
Common eider |  | Somateria mollissima | Anatidae[19] |  |  | 123 km/h
76 mph  | High-speed wings
Eurasian teal |  | Anas crecca | Anatidae |  |  | 97 km/h
60 mph  | High–aspect ratio wings
Anna's hummingbird |  | Calypte anna | Trochilidae  |  | 56 km/h
35 mph[20] | 70 km/h
43 mph  | Rapidly-beating wings

## See also

* List of birds by flight heights

## Note

1. ↑ Sustained ground speed for approximately nine hours with no rest on high tailwinds during an Antarctic storm.
2. ↑ The BBC warns against taking this value too seriously, as the methods employed to measure it have never been published, rendering its verification difficult.[citation needed]

## References

1. ↑ "Basic Facts About Peregrine Falcon". Defenders of Wildlife. http://www.defenders.org/peregrine-falcon/basic-facts.
2. ↑ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (January 15, 2008). "All About the Peregrine Falcon". Department of the Interior. http://www.fws.gov/endangered/recovery/peregrine/QandA.html#fast.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Bourton, Jody (2 March 2010). "Supercharged swifts take flight speed record". BBC Earth News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8539000/8539383.stm.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Fastest on Earth: Malik fuel". Extreme Science. http://www.extremescience.com/peregrine-falcon.htm.
5. ↑ Harpole, Tom (March 2005). "Falling with the Falcon". Air & Space magazine. http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/falcon.html?c=y&page=1.
6. ↑ "The Saker Falcon in Austria". https://saker-info.at/biology.html.
7. ↑ "Saker Falcon". 2020. https://blueplanetbiomes.org/saker_falcon.php.
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Kirschbaum, Kari; Ivory, Alicia (2002). "Aquila chrysaetos golden eagle". The Animal Diversity Web. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Aquila chrysaetos.html.
9. ↑ "Guinness Records - Fastest Bird Level Flight". Guinness World Records Limited. http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/speed/fastest-bird-level-flight.
10. ↑ Catry, Paulo; Phillips, Richard (13 May 2004). "Sustained fast travel by a gray-headed albatross (Thalassarche chrysostoma) riding an antarctic storm". The Auk 121 (4): 1208. doi:10.1642/0004-8038(2004)121[1208:SFTBAG2.0.CO;2].
11. ↑ "Gyrfalcon - Animal Ark". http://animalark.org/education/learn-about-animals/raptors/gyrfalcon/.
12. ↑ Tucker, V. A.; Cade, T. J.; Tucker, A. E. (July 1998). "Diving speeds and angles of a gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus)". Journal of Experimental Biology 201: 2061–2070. PMID 9622578. https://jeb.biologists.org/content/jexbio/201/13/2061.full.pdf.
13. ↑ "swifts". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2013. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/576993/swift. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
14. ↑ Hobby, Falco subbuteo
15. ↑ Animal Corner; Sea Birds Frigate Bird Galapagos Sea Birds - The Great Frigate Bird and the Magnificent Frigate Bird
16. ↑ Free find Spur-Winged Goose Plectropterus gambensis \- Kenya Birds
17. ↑ The Cornell lab of Ornithology - Cornell University Bird Guide - Red-breasted Merganser
18. ↑ Ducks Unlimited - Wet-lands conversation Canvasback
19. ↑ Family XXXIX. Anatinae. Ducks. Family The Eider Duck. [common Eider.] Genus Fuligula mollissima, Linn. [Somateria mollissima.]
20. ↑ Clark, C. J.; Dudley, R. (2009). "Flight costs of long, sexually selected tails in hummingbirds". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 276 (1664): 2109–2115. doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0090. PMID 19324747.

## External links

* The world's fastest birds The Travel Almanac
* What Are The Fastest Flying Birds? Blur it

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