Wing Shapes and Flight Styles

More than 99 percent of the world’s birds can fly, although their speed, stamina, and agility vary greatly. Body size, wing shape, and flight style all affect their performance, but adaptation to their habitat and lifestyle is the driving force behind all of these anatomical and behavioral characteristics.

Bird wing shapes range from short, broad, and rounded to extraordinarily long and narrow, and flying styles vary from constant rapid flapping to birds that travel for hours on end and rarely flap their wings at all!

In this guide, we’ll be taking a deeper look at the relationship between wing shape and bird flight. Read along as we dive into the mechanics of flight.

Wing Shape - The Foundation of Flight

Classification of Wing Shapes

Birds’ wing shapes are often classified into four broad categories. Elliptical wings are the most common shape, found in most songbirds, game birds, Woodpeckers, and other small to medium-sized species.

In contrast to the rounded shape of the elliptical wing, high-speed wings are sharply angled, sweeping back and ending in a point. These wings are typical of fast birds like Swifts and Falcons with small to medium body sizes.

Soaring wings, like those of large Eagles, and gliding wings have large surface areas and have evolved to allow sustained flight with relatively little effort. These wings are cumbersome to flap but provide enough surface area to lift large, heavy-bodied species and even keep them aloft using the lift and thrust provided by natural air currents. Lastly, high-lift wings are found on most raptors that carry prey and on large birds like Herons and Storks.

Continue reading to learn more about the physical characteristics of these diverse wing shapes.

Physical Characteristics

Elliptical wings

Elliptical wings are relatively short and wide (low aspect ratio), with an asymmetrical but roughly oval shape. The wing tips have relatively large and distinctive primary feathers with spaces or ‘slots’ between them.

High-speed wings

High-speed wings are narrow and pointed (higher aspect ratio), without slotted primary feathers at the wing tips. These wings are relatively small compared to the bird’s body weight and are generally found in small to medium-sized species.

Soaring and high-lift wings

The soaring wings of large birds of prey like Eagles and Vultures have very pronounced slotted primary feathers that look like long fingers at the end of their wings. These wings are pretty large relative to the bird’s body size and are relatively broad, although Eagles tend to have smaller wings (higher wing loading) to facilitate high-speed dives when catching prey.

Heavy-bodied birds like Swans and raptors that carry heavy prey rely on similarly large wings to get airborne, even if they do not typically soar. These wings are large and broad, with distinctive slotted primary feathers at the tips.

Gliding wings

Like gliding aircraft, some specialized birds have very long, narrow wings. The Wandering and Royal Albatrosses of the Southern Hemisphere oceans are classic examples. These birds have the longest wingspan on the planet, sometimes exceeding eleven feet!

A Mute Swan. Heavy-bodied birds like Swans and raptors that carry heavy prey rely on similarly large wings to get airborne, even if they do not typically soar

Correlating Wing Shapes to Flight Styles

Elliptical Wings for Maneuverability

The roughly oval or elliptical wing shape of songbirds is a ‘general-purpose’ wing shape ideal for short-distance flights, rapid take-offs, quick acceleration, and high maneuverability. These wings require constant flapping flight, sometimes with short pauses, but usually without long periods of gliding.

Slotted wing tips are common, especially in species that make frequent short flights throughout the day. Elliptical wings are also common amongst ground birds like Pheasants that make rapid-short distance flights to escape predators.

Elliptical wings are the ideal shape for forest and woodland songbirds that must maneuver between vegetation but fly relatively short distances. Interestingly, some migratory songbirds have longer wings and a slightly different arrangement of the primary feathers, resulting in the ‘point’ of the wing occurring closer to the leading edge.

Birds with elliptical wings:

• Songbirds
• Gamebirds like Partridges and Pheasants
• Waterbirds like Rails and Moorhens

High-Speed Wings for Swift Flight

High-speed wings have a more angular shape, with the leading and trailing edges often angled back like an elbow. These wings end in a somewhat pointed tip without slotted primary feathers, although fast-flying raptors like Falcons can spread their primary feathers into slots when lifting heavy prey.

High-speed wings have relatively high wing loading, which means they have a small surface area relative to the bird’s weight. They require constant flapping in level flight, but these birds can dive or stoop at high speeds by closing their wings.

Birds with high-speed wings:

• Hummingbirds
• Plovers and other shorebirds
• Swifts
• Swallows
• Falcons

Elliptical wings are also common amongst ground birds like Pheasants that make rapid-short distance flights to escape predators

A Barn Swallow. High-speed wings have relatively high wing loading, which means they have a small surface area relative to the bird’s weight

Soaring and Gliding Wings

Large birds like Eagles and albatrosses do not need to make sudden flights to escape predators or make short flights between branches throughout the day. Instead, these birds have evolved large wings to harness the power of moving air currents with minimal energy expenditure.

Soaring birds that live over dry land have large, broad wings with distinct wing slots to provide the lift needed for take-off. These birds soar using thermal energy, which creates rising air currents, allowing them to climb high into the sky.

Thermal soaring birds:

• Large Eagles
• Vultures

Gliding birds differ in having very long, narrow wings without slotted primary feathers to minimize drag. These birds employ a flying style called dynamic soaring, where they use wind energy to provide the lift and thrust they need, typically flying for extended periods and distances with minimal wing flapping.

Dynamic soaring birds:

• Wandering Albatross
• Manx Shearwater

High-Lift Wings and their Utility

The broad, slotted wings of Eagles are also seen in many other large birds that need the extra lift required to match their heavy body weight.

Birds like Storks and Pelicans use their large, high-lift wings to get airborne and move relatively slowly with constant wing flaps, although they can travel considerable distances on migration. These birds can also soar using thermals of rising air.

Birds with high-lift wings:

• Storks
• Cranes
• Pelicans
• Herons

A Black-browed Albatross. Gliding birds have very long, narrow wings without slotted primary feathers to minimize drag

Birds with high-lift wings include the Red-crowned Crane

Flight Styles and Behavioral Implications

Flapping vs. Soaring

Without the free energy of wind or rising air currents, birds must flap their wings to create their own lift and thrust. Birds like Doves and Ducks achieve high speeds and accelerate rapidly by constant flapping, although this is an energy-expensive form of flight.

Soaring and gliding use just a fraction of the energy, although these flight styles rely on specific weather conditions that may be restricted to certain times and places.

The need for strong air movement limits soaring birds like Condors to mountainous areas and large Albatrosses to regions where strong, continuous winds are the norm.

Hovering, Diving, and Other Specialized Flight Behaviors

Birds from various families demonstrate advanced flying skills, either to access specialized food sources or to show off their fitness to the opposite sex. Classic examples include the hovering of Hummingbirds and Kestrels and the diving of Kingfishers, Gannets, and Terns.

Birds that propel themselves underwater with their wings show interesting tradeoffs to optimize the use of their wings for flight and swimming.

Birds like Murres have very small wings and rely on constant, rapid wingbeats to stay airborne. They have evolved such specialized ‘dual-purpose’ wings since large wings would require too much energy in the dense medium of water.

A Kingfisher. Birds from various families demonstrate advanced flying skills, either to access specialized food sources or to show off their fitness to the opposite sex

Evolutionary Perspectives on Wing Shapes and Flight

Adaptation and Natural Selection

Wing shapes and flight patterns are classic examples of evolutionary trade-offs, where birds have evolved specific traits at the expense of others. Each species has developed its own suite of characteristics that best suit its lifestyle and habitat. Over enough generations, selective pressures change birds’ wing shapes to optimize for various factors, including feeding, migrating, and escaping predators.

It can be tricky to picture how nature shapes birds in the way it does, but the evolution of accipiter (Cooper’s Hawk, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, etc.) wings provides a good theoretical example.

A Sparrowhawk with long wings would have an increased risk of injuring itself while hurtling through the branches of a forest in pursuit of its prey. Therefore, individuals with longer wings are less likely to survive to sexual maturity and less likely to pass on their genes to the next generation.

Flight Style Evolution in Bird Lineages

The avian wing shape and flight style have evolved both divergently and convergently. During the early evolution of avians, wings diverged into a tremendous variety of forms as birds branched out into various habitats and lifestyles.

Convergent evolution is the development of similar structures and behaviors across unrelated species, which narrows diversity. Interestingly, unrelated groups of waterbirds show convergent evolution in wing shape but not flight pattern.

A Sparrowhawk hunting in the forest. The avian wing shape and flight style have evolved both divergently and convergently

Summary

From the blur of a Hummingbird’s high-speed wings to the immense wingspan of a soaring Andean Condor, birds’ wings and their use have evolved in astonishing ways.

Each flying bird species is an aerodynamic marvel that has developed flight capabilities to suit their ecological niche and environment, allowing them to forage, migrate, evade predators, and ultimately survive.

Bird flight styles and wing shapes are just one of countless fascinating fields of avian study. However, studying their ways and managing their habitats has also become increasingly crucial as birds face mounting pressure from habitat loss and other threats.