Dennis Forsyth writes:
I love the ability of my camera to capture visual evidence that I would never see with the naked eye, or probably not even with binoculars. I had read somewhere that many birds use their upper and lower scapular feathers ( located on what we might think of as the shoulders or upper wings) to increase drag and reduce lift as they make some manoeuvres, especially when landing. Modern aircraft do the same thing with ‘spoilers’ or ‘spoiler flaps’. I managed to get a camera set-up today which allowed me to photograph a Violet-greens ‘spoilers’ in action. I suspect that humans have not invented a single new thing in aviation that birds didn’t already have in use. Dennis
