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Reply	Yggdrasil says: That was actually pretty funny (wings upside down too...).I live i Norway and see this fairly often. It is mostly because they are looking up to see if another bird is attacking, but it could have lost an eye, and has rotated it#39;s quot;good eyequot; to look ... at the camera!  (no votes) Tags: animals, human body.
	posted on 2009-06-11 09:16:53 | Report abuse

Reply	Caspar Henderson says: I agree the bird is looking over its shoulder, not flying upside down. But observations of other birds flying upside are said to well documented.In Pleasurable Kingdom: Animals and the Nature of Feeling Good, Jonathan Balcombe says there are many accounts of raven antics in [refereed] scientific journals and books. quot;A notable trick is flying upside down, sometimes for 100 meters or more.quot;The reason, he argues, is play -- behaviour that is both adaptive and pleasurable: in Iqualit, a village north of Hudson Bay, locals have seen ravens hanging upside down, swinging and somersaulting over powerlines, hanging from them with their bills, and sliding down roofs...On another occasion, two ravens played a form of #39;rodeo#39; on two loosely strung, wind-whipped overhead power lines. They too turns trying to grasp the second wire in the bill and hand on as long as possible. ...Raven authority Bernd Heinrich has watched Houdi, one of the birds he raised from a chick, sliding and rolling on her back repeatedly down a two foot high snow mound.  (no votes) Tags: animals, human body.
	posted on 2009-06-11 10:52:11 | Report abuse

Reply	jonathanseer says: the bird is not flying oddly. Birds are capable of many things. I once spent a year watching several different species of pigeons feed at my window sill where I put out seed while I worked. Normally they don#39;t come in close contact, but here they did, and what happened with pretty amazing.In particular small Inca dove jumping backward with a quick flit of her wings (looked like flying backwards) to avoid a bullying pounce by a larger White Winged dove who obviously wanted the feed for itself.She did so quot;NOT just to avoid being hitquot; but to turn the White Wing#39;s dove pounce against her.She timed her backwards flit to coinside with the White Wing as it was just a few feet shy of hitting her. By doing so she had learned how to clip the feather#39;s of the White wing and cause it to crashland on the ground.Whereupon she returned to feeding, and I#39;m sure the White Wing slinked off embarrassed and confused as to why his little trick didn#39;t work on the Inca, when it worked on the Ring necks. LOLI had to see this several times before I believed it was happening.It#39;s not that animals are doing things they shouldn#39;t do.Rather it#39;s rare that we pay enough attn. to notice all the things they can do, especially the things that require a lot of obervation time to catch them doing.  (no votes) Tags: animals, human body.
	posted on 2009-06-11 11:16:49 | Report abuse

Reply	Martin says: While hunting I have seen Canadian Geese often do a complete roll just for fun while they are looking for a place to land. I guess just like us they get tired of simple flapping  (no votes) Tags: animals, human body.
	posted on 2009-06-11 21:50:32 | Report abuse

Reply	Anonymous says: So the bird is upright but crooking its neck. Perhaps it did this to keep one eye on the breaking ice by the boat (to its bottom right) and its beak and other eye facing up in readiness against competitors or parasitising birds?@Martin, what you saw in geese is called whiffling, a way of making a controlled descent in strong wind. See here.  (no votes) Tags: animals, human body.
	posted on 2009-06-12 01:15:42 | Report abuse

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