How can birds still fly if they have to constantly eat to have enough energy to fly? Doesn’t eating make them so heavy that they need even more energy to keep flying?

Question

When I watch the birds at the feeding station in my garden, I notice that individual birds often eat a lot at once. Doesn’t all that food make them so heavy that they need more energy/food to fly than they can carry in flight?

In: Biology

Answer 1

I’ve seen a seagull fly down into a courtyard to eat a load of stuff out of a bin then struggle with an almost vertical takeoff (due to it being a courtyard) so it threw everything up and then managed to get airborne.