Wingbeat

The water flows through our fingers, ice melts precisely because of the warmth of our hands, flowers fade in sunlight, and even birds carry themselves away with a single wingbeat. ❋ W.F. Lantry (2011)

Outdoors a huge black bird came flapping with a crow's laborious wingbeat. ❋ Unknown (2010)

I was used to wingbeat cycles, not Superman-style antics. ❋ J.F. Lewis (2011)

Each wingbeat is controlled by a separate nerve impulse, unlike flies and bees, whose wingbeats depend on a pulsating vibration of the upper plates of the thorax. ❋ James Gurney (2009)

It is not strong like the eagle; its wingbeat does not have that breadth and boldness - but neither does it belong to the grey and twittering breed of sparrows. ❋ David McDuff (2009)

It's greening up with a triangle of milk white swans wingbeat after wingbeat past past ❋ Greenintegerblog (2008)

Look for a slow wingbeat that takes place mostly below the horizontal plane of the body. ❋ Unknown (2004)

On the Wing Look for its tiny size, sharply pointed wings, a wingbeat nearly as swift as a diving duck's, and a short neck and tail. ❋ Unknown (2004)

He heard a snake rustle in the dry thorns, surprised out of its drowsy torpor, and in a wingbeat, a pair of magpies tipped past him, close to the ground, piebald in black and white, showing long, iridescent tails. ❋ Unknown (2003)

As Inman watched, the birds did not strike a wingbeat but nonetheless climbed gradually, riding a rising column of air, circling higher and higher until they were little dashes of black on the sky. ❋ Frazier, Charles, 1950- Cold Mountain (2003)

Suddenly the black bird flew up head high, and then with a powerful wingbeat shot forward with both legs fully extended. ❋ Smith, Wilbur (2001)

The women slithered backward, hissing in alarm; both birds were growing larger-enormously larger-with every wingbeat. ❋ Lackey, Mercedes (2001)

If there was any skill that Kelvren had gained above and beyond any other gryphon, it was the ability to move through the high branches of the great trees with barely a wingbeat. ❋ Lackey, Mercedes (1998)

He angled out into level flight, taking his direction from his own inner senses, and now the basket hung true beneath him, no longer bobbing with every wingbeat. ❋ Lackey, Mercedes (1996)