Meeting Abstract
Most studies on the acoustics of bird flight focus on gliding- and not on flapping flight. Here we present preliminary acoustic data on the sound of wing-flapping in a number of bat- and bird species. We did not record the acoustics of the wing-beat rate itself but of the acoustic impulses created by each individual flap of the wing. In this context we show that during take-off, when barn owls must flap strongly to create sufficient lift, the sounds of wing-flaps are clearly audible. We also present a case of specialized ‘wing-claps’ used by fruit bats in the Old World. The exact mechanism of creating each clap is still unknown, but we proved these claps to be used in a form of rudimentary echolocation to detect large structures.
