I was watching a crow this afternoon, and I realized something kind of staggering, which had never occurred to me before, even though I have seen birds land on branches thousands of times. Here’s what I realized:

Birds not only navigate from a position on the ground to a position on a branch (in another dimension, for us flatlanders — the dimension of vertical space)… they land ‘already balanced’.

This means they can not only intuit the precise amounts of effort and orientation needed to complete the leap/flight… during this transit the predetermine the precise physical orientation required for a landing that produces an ‘already balanced’ situation.

Additionally, this is also often accomplished in high winds, rain or snow, where the bird (or group) must predictively ascertain how to effectively manage a landing on a dynamic perch moving and possibly accelerated in several dimensions influenced by an array of external conditions…

I don’t find quite as as remarkable as the fact that I never noticed or appreciated this before.