Lifting power of birds

[Brown and Boris]

Walking the dogs this morning when I spotted a kestrel hovering then sat in a tree obviously looking for breakfast. My intial instinct was to keep the dogs close to hand in case he caried one of, but then tealised that a 600g bird was unlikley to be able to cope with a 10kg dog.


You see Eagles with thrashing salmon and some raptors with small rabbits and I recall somewhere seeing swallows carrying coconuts.


But what could a bird lift?

[muffinmenace]

Is that an African Swallow?

[caduceus]

Brown and Boris said:

But what could a bird lift?

This much...?

[Crusoe]

There was that russian girl with the 160lb snatch...

Think birds can lift about their own weight give or take, sure google would help.

[Brown and Boris]

From Google;

assuming we are talking about flight capable birds carrying weight aloft)

I would imagine an Andean Condor. They are the largest flight-capable birds in the world. They also nest in high altitudes that are difficult to reach. They would have to be physically incredibly strong to contend with such conditions and survive.

Personally, I've always wanted to have my own Andean Condor so that I could train it to eat all of the noisy children in my neighborhood that pester me. Or at least throw them into the ocean.

edit-

• Margechick:

"Great Horned Owls, on the other hand, can lift 2-3 times their own weight and carry it off."

• My response:

So can Golden Eagles. Great Horned Owls might be the strongest birds, pound for pound (in North America) but they are not the strongest in general. Also, the asker did not ask which bird can lift the most compared to its own body weight. The asker simply asked which bird could lift the most weight. An Andean Condor can definitely lift more than a Great Horned Owl or a Golden Eagle. However a Condor would not have the ability to grasp prey as well as either of those animals and would be weaker pound for pound. It just has a lot more pounds. It is not unusual for a large Condor to fly away with something that weighs ten pounds in its mouth.

[byhff]

Brown and Boris said:

My intial instinct was to keep the dogs close to hand in case he caried one of

[phumy]

swerni said:

Crusoe said:

There was that russian girl with the 160lb snatch...

Think birds can lift about their own weight give or take, sure google would help.

you sure your not thinking of Fatima Whitbread

After the Olympics Fatima was found to have a hair growing from her chest, not any ordinary hair because it was sooooooo long, in fact it was so long it reached right down to her <deep vioce on> b0ll0cks <deep voice off>

[Trooper2]

Here is a video of Golden Eagles taking Ibex in Spain, at 4:55 an eagle carries one off that easily looks to be twice the birds weight, but the cliff conditions aid the bird.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VklTs-Tid_I&fea...

Harpy Eagles routinely take sloths and small Monkeys that weigh around 1/3 the birds weight but have much tougher flying conditions in the rain forest canopy. Harpy's kill prey much bigger than themselves but have to break it up because of the tough flying conditions. Anyone remember the Harpy scenes from "Planet Earth" Simply amazing fliers are Harpy's.

I've seen photos and video of Bald Eagles and Stellar's Sea Eagles flying with fish in there talons that looked like they easily outweighed the birds.

Harpy's and Stellar's weigh around 18 to 20 pounds and Balds and Goldens around 12 to 15.

Edited by Trooper2 on Sunday 30th November 16:08