This upcoming weekend I plan to attend the Tri County Sportsmen Club annual picnic. The club will be holding a shoot beginning at 9 a.m.. to test the shooters’ skill by shooting clay birds thrown at different angles and speed.

The shooters will usually have an excuse for missing a clay bird. The picnic will follow at noon. I do not plan to shoot, but will certainly enjoy the good food the ladies have prepared.

In 1951, several sportsmen gathered for a shooting party on a moor in Southeastern Ireland. The men were hunting for the golden plover, which had eluded them throughout the day. The group leader Sir Hugh Beaver made the comment that the reason they hadn’t hit any golden plover was because the plover is the world’s fastest flying game bird but his hunting companions disagreed with him.

At the time Beaver, who was managing the Guinness Breweries, was determined to prove his point. He quickly learned however that there were no books containing such facts. He decided to write his own book, and four years later (1955), the Guinness Book of World Records was published.

Since that time this book has had a huge impact on people from all over the world. Many people have gone to great and often bizarre lengths to become a record in this book. It seems that setting new records has become a national pastime.

Although the book was Beaver’s idea, Norris and Ross McWhirter, who were identical twins, made it work. Their father was a newspaper editor in London, and while growing up, the twins collected facts, and by the time they had graduated from Oxford, they had amassed an overwhelming amount of data and decided to open their own research agency. A friend recommended Beaver, who gave the men an interview and an okay to print a book.

The first edition sold 180,000 copies.

Norris and Ross made the comment that the hardest part of the interview was telling Beaver that he was wrong about the golden plover being the fastest flying game bird. Nearly all birds have two speeds, and some have three. The different speeds are cruising, emergency and migration.

A bird that normally flies at 20 mph can average 30 mph on migration and, if in danger, can reach 40 mph in a few seconds. It is sometimes thought that the smaller the bird, the faster it seems to be traveling, while it is the larger bird that is flying faster.

Geese are among the swiftest, sometimes attaining an airspeed of a mile a minute, which is about twice the speed of small birds that appear to dart about so quickly.

The most impressive statistics are those charting the distances covered by birds in short periods of time. Lapwings are known to have crossed the Atlantic from Britain to Newfoundland in about 24 hours. This meant that they had to travel 2,200 miles, with an average speed of close to 90 mph, however this does not mean that the lapwings flew at this speed. At the time of the crossing, a 55 mph tailwind was blowing across the Atlantic from Europe to Canada, which accounted for over half the birds’ speed.

If a paper bag had been blown along by such a wind, it would have traveled at over 60 mph. Seabirds probably hold the record for the fastest wind-assisted speeds. Albatrosses and shearwaters are long-winged and built like gliders.

Several species spend their entire lives in the strong winds of the roaring 40s in the southern hemisphere. Ranging up to 350 miles in a day’s flying is part and parcel of their foraging routes over the ocean, with almost all the effort provided by wind. Indeed, the longest-winged species scarcely need to flap at all. Momentum is maintained by the strength of the wind over the sea and air turbulence created by waves gives the birds the lift they require.

In complete contrast, hummingbirds are only able to hover by beating their wings constantly. They have the fastest wingbeat of all, completing 75 up-and-down movements in a second. The house sparrow beats its wings almost 13 times a second in fast flight, while the heron has just two or three. Taking off requires the most energy.

If a bird is made to rise and fall several times in quick succession, it will eventually remain on the ground.

Some of the quickest birds are shorebirds and waterfowl. Teal are the smallest ducks and, unlike most waterfowl, they do not need to taxi to take off. They spring into flight and twist and turn at speeds of up to 60 mph.

Golden plovers are capable of out flying a pursuing peregrine falcon in level flight. However, if the falcon can gain height and keep its quarry below, the added speed derived from gravity in a dive (stoop) will enable the falcon to overtake its prey.

Should a peregrine falcon attack from high above and drop like a stone on its victim, its velocity rockets to a staggering 180-200 mph.

The fastest flying game bird is the red breasted merganser, which can hit speeds of 80 mph. The fastest straight, powered flight is that of the spine-tailed swifts at 105 mph.

At one time, flight speeds of birds were recorded by automobile speedometers and aircraft; however, the speeds are now recorded with radar, which is more, but not completely accurate.

Accurate measurements are difficult to obtain unless the bird travels over a measured course and if wind conditions at the level of flight are known. Several subtle factors, besides wind and pursuit, can influence the speed of a flying bird. For example the species that have a courtship flight often reach their maximum speeds at that time.

Small woodland birds often fly faster across an open area, where they could be attacked by birds of prey. And now, for my last bit of fact finding, birds in flocks generally fly faster than when flying alone.

Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.