It's a Plane! No, Wait. It's A … Bird?

While on vacation, my family and I saw the Blue Angels practice a total of two times. We watched the first practice from the Navy Base where I may or may not have entertained a Top Gun fantasy. The second practice we watched from across the Pensacola Bay. It was most impressive.

Since I'd already seen the Blue Angels practice once, I felt confident in my knowledge of this elite flight squadron. I knew the history, the maneuvers, and specifics about the planes. I could have taught a class with all of my knowledge.

No. Not really.

But I thought I could, at the very least, tell the difference between an F/A-18 Hornet and pelican. Turns out, I can not tell the difference between a plane and a bird. And to be completely honest, I confused the two on more than one occasion.

The first time I mistook a pelican for a plane was about six minutes before the practice even started. Something quite majestic arose on the horizon and I excitedly pointed and yelled "Look! It's a plane! Practice is starting!" only to be informed by my 20/15 visioned husband that I was, in fact, mistaken. My plane was a pelican.

See if you can tell which are birds and which are planes in this photo:

Here is a hint:

It's uncanny how much a flock of birds looks like a flock of airplanes, am I right?

Sometimes a single bird can look suspiciously like a rogue plane.

It happened more than once.

Once I figured out how to tell the difference between a bird and a plane I sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the rest of practice.

Hard to believe these guys do this stuff at 400 miles per hour.

And then you realize that some of them do this upside down. To quote TV's Joey Lawrence, "Whoa!".

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