SuperNature - Wild Flyers

The sky is a crowded world where mammals, birds and insects hunt, escape, mate, defend territory, sleep, and even die on the wing. Survival up here depends not just on beating gravity or mastering flight, but also out-flying the competition.

The Night sky is the backdrop to an arms race that has been played out for millions or years between billions of bats and billions or moths, where aerial dominance is decided by the tiny advantages in flying skill and sensory equipment.

A flock is one of the most spectacular sights in nature – but how does it work? The explanation comes down to some surprisingly simple rules that each bird applies to its seven closest neighbors.

The Anna’s Hummingbird is so fast that it harnesses the air around it to produce a sound – angling its tail feathers as it reaches top speed so they resonate and hum – a sound that the female finds irresistible.

Many animals take to the skies for a split second, but to stay there the planet’s strongest flyers have to push the laws of physics right to the edge. Explore the extremes of true flight: Power, acceleration, top speed, maneuverability and endurance.

Whooper swans are built for speed. They have long, pointed wings with stiff primary feathers to enable them to migrate between their summer breeding grounds in Iceland and their wintering ground in the UK. But when you’re built for top speed, acceleration is a sluggish affair.

The secret to Brazilian free-tailed bats' success is safety in numbers, and their highly adaptable wing. Much like our hands its able to change its shape in all three dimensions, making the bat perhaps the ultimate flying machine.

In his short life, this giant beetle has to find a mate, so to speed things up, he takes to the skies. As his wings move down, he produces lift much like a bird, but he also twists his wing at the end of each wing stroke.

With long thin wings, and a nose that can see the movement of the air around her, a royal albatross can use the power of the wind to fly for free.

Hopping is key to the most efficient form of locomotion on land. Unlike running animals, when a kangaroo speeds up its legs don’t have to move faster. Simply by altering the angle of take off they can increase the distance they fly with each hop.

Caracals are adapted to catch birds in flight and capable of leaping up to 3m high. Enormous back legs maximize the caracal’s speed on take off and special muscle fibers deliver three times the power of a human athlete’s.

Gliding allows flying squirrels to find scarce food fast, even in the depths of a North American winter. The longest limbs in the squirrel world make their wings as large as possible. But flights are kept short and fast to help the squirrel avoid a major predator - the Great Horned Owl.