Show government scientists record speed of bird flight the swiftest bird flight ever recorded accurately is in the neighborhood of miles an hour ordinary unhurried flight averages irom from 20 to 40 miles an hour according to the species the united states department of 0 agriculture has compiled a complete record ol of the measured light flight speeds of north american and european birds the swiftest denizen of the skies according to this compendium um is the california duck hawk whose speed measured with a stop watch from an airplane was found to be between and miles an hour the eagle is relatively slow the department of agriculture compiler found jonii one rather questionable recorded speed of miles tor for a golden eagle only two entirely trustworthy records of eagle speeds were found one of 30 and the other of 60 miles bird speed records more than 2 20 0 years old are worthless the report explains because any possible means of measurement measure was quite inaccurate and some fantastic estimates were made managing up to 5 or 6 miles a minute most such guesses and by tar far the most trustworthy were made by hunters A hunter aiming at a bird in flight had to make three subconscious estimates the distance of his target the speed at which it was moving in order that he would know how far ahead to aim and the speed of his bullet the skilled marksman learned to make allowance tor for these three factors instinctively but never could explain satisfactorily how he did it only one of these elements of marksmanship the velocity of the bullet could be measured accurately cura tely but says the report it I 1 has been found recently by experiment that there is an appreciable loss of time in pulling the trigger against the sky it is practically impossible to gauge the exact distance of the bird and the distance it travels may be exaggerated because momentum will carry a shot bird some distance before it falls an overestimate of a very few feet in these figures will result in the computation of very high speeds tor for game birds gunners have been prone to attribute speeds of or even miles mile an hour to ducks |