A standing person who faints, falls over. Maintaining one’s balance requires constant muscular adjustments. Maintaining one’s balance while standing on one leg is even more difficult.
Consequently, many people have marvelled at the sight of a heron napping as it stands on one foot. Insights into such feats were recently supplied by a study of flamingoes. The authors found that balance aids built into the bird’s basic anatomy allow for a one-legged stance that demands little muscular effort. This stance is so stable that a bird sways less to keep itself upright when it appears to be dozing than when it’s alert with eyes open. Indeed, even a dead bird can be prompted to balance on one foot, when it cannot be made to balance on two.
It appears that some birds have a mechanism humans lack for stably balancing on a single leg.
A week ago, a heron on a piling was standing on one leg. It is a common sight and, until the recent paper on the subject, seemed inexplicable (2017/05/18).
Normally when a heron is hunting, it is positioned on two feet (2013/07/19).
A heron in a tree during really cold weather, is seen to balance on one foot (2012/11/20).
However, the frequent sight of a heron posed on a single leg always seems odd (2013/12/02).
It has been seen so frequently that it must be a stable position for the bird (2006/10/14).
Indeed, even this view of (what appears to be a contortionist) must be normal (2009/10/15).
