page_title: Bird flight
hierarchical_section_title: Bird flight
caption_attribution_description: English: A flock of domestic Rock Pigeons (Columba livia f. domestica) in flight above Hurlstone Park, a suburb of Sydney. Each pigeon is in a different phase of its stroke.
context_page_description: Bird flight is the primary mode of locomotion used by most bird species in which birds take off and fly. Flight assists birds with feeding, breeding, avoiding predators, and migrating.
  Bird flight is one of the most complex forms of locomotion in the animal kingdom. Each facet of this type of motion, including hovering, taking off, and landing, involves many complex movements. As different bird species adapted over millions of years through evolution for specific environments, prey, predators, and other needs, they developed specializations in their wings, and acquired different forms of flight.
  Various theories exist about how bird flight evolved, including flight from falling or gliding, from running or leaping, from wing-assisted incline running or from proavis behavior.
context_section_description: Bird flight is the primary mode of locomotion used by most bird species in which birds take off and fly. Flight assists birds with feeding, breeding, avoiding predators, and migrating.
  Bird flight is one of the most complex forms of locomotion in the animal kingdom. Each facet of this type of motion, including hovering, taking off, and landing, involves many complex movements. As different bird species adapted over millions of years through evolution for specific environments, prey, predators, and other needs, they developed specializations in their wings, and acquired different forms of flight.
  Various theories exist about how bird flight evolved, including flight from falling or gliding (the trees down hypothesis),  from running or leaping (the ground up hypothesis), from wing-assisted incline running or from  proavis (pouncing) behavior.
caption: A flock of domestic pigeons each in a different phase of its flap.
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