How do birds fly?

Bird

Most birds are well suited for flying.  First of all, a bird has feathers and wings, and powerful muscles in its breast with which to flat them.  A bird’s body is streamlined to other little air resistance. Its bones are light in weight. Many of them are hollow and filled with air. 

When a bird beats its wings downward, it produces a lifting force that holds the bird in the air.  As the wings flap downward to flight, the long wingtip feathers twist and push against the air, moving the bird forward.  The bird uses its tail feathers as a brake and as a rudder for steering. – Dick Rogers

Where do bees go in the winter?

Bees spend the winter huddled together in their hives.  Inside the hive, the bees move about slowly, eating the extra honey that they stored during the busy summer season, and buzzing their wings to keep warm.  If a bee becomes too cold, it cannot move and thus, soon dies.  

Before the end of winter, the queen bee begins to lay eggs again, and in the spring, all the busy activities of the hive are resumed.  In warm climates, however, where there is something in flower the year round, honeybees remains active, making honey in every season.–Dick Rogers

What are ladybirds?

Ladybirds are really small, spotted beetles with a rounded body shaped like half a pea. The polka-dotted ladybird, or ladybug, is really  small beetle with a round body shaped like half a pea.

The most familiar ladybirds are shiny red with black spots.  But some are black with red spots.  Still others are yellow with black of red spots.

These gaily colored insects live in a orchards, gardens, and fields, where they eat great number of aphids and other plant-harming bugs.

In order times, farmers burning off their fields fretted about harming the helpful ladybird, giving rise to the children’s verse:  “ladybird, ladybird, fly away home.  Your house is on fire and your children are gone.”

To “fly away home,” a ladybird first raises its hard wing covers and then unfolds it flying wings.  The lady bird beetle got its name during the Middle Ages, when the insect was associated with the Virgin Mary by such names as creatures of Our Lady and Animals of the Virgin.-Dick Rogers

How does a flying fish fly?

The fins of a flying fish act like glider wings when it leaps out of the water and sails through the air.

The fins of all fish help them to swim, but the fins of the flying fish also help it to fly.  The “wings” of the flying fish are its large, wing-like front fins.

It does not fly through the air by flapping its “wings” like a bird does.  It just glides through the air, sometimes for several hundred feet.

The flying fish gets into the air by swimming rapidly through the water.  Then it flips itself out of the water with its strong tail.

Once in the air, it spreads out the large fns at its sides and sails through the air much like a glider.  Sharp blows of its tail on the water’s surface give added power to its takeoff.

The flying fish can “fly” high enough to land on the decks of ships.  Schools of them will suddenly burst from the water, looking very much like they are playing.  But it is more likely they were frightened by a passing boat, or trying to escape larger fish.

Flying fish can be found in all warm seas.  They are deep blue on their backs and sides and silvery underneath.  Flying fishes may grow to be 18 inches long.   – Dick Rogers