The New Hotness

At this instant, neither of us realized the other was present:

Despite what it looks like, the blackbird (maybe a starling) passed just beyond arm’s reach directly ahead of the bike at eye level:

And away!

At 60 frames per second, that’s 466 ms of elapsed time.

Stepping through the video, frame by frame, the bird’s wings flap at a consistent three frames per stroke = 50 ms/stroke = 20 stroke/s = 1200 stroke/min. A bit of rummaging produces a study suggesting a starling’s normal rate is 10 stroke/s, so the critter had the throttles firewalled at war emergency power.

It makes my pedal pushing seem downright inconsequential…