Lovebirds can rotate head at speeds of 2700 degrees per second

During flight, turning lovebirds can rotate their heads up to 2,700 degrees per second, according to scientists who found that these speedy rotations help improve sight and reduce blur as the birds fly.
Daniel Kress from Stanford University and colleagues found that turning lovebirds rotate their head at up to 2700 degrees per second, faster than any other vertebrate recorded to date.
The researchers discovered this super-fast behaviour by filming the manoeuvre at 2,000 frames per second during a goal-directed task of take-off, fly away from a perch, turning, and flying back to land on the same perch in a custom-built flight arena.

Analysis of high-speed flight recordings showed that rapidly turning lovebirds execute extremely fast head turns during turning manoeuvres.
Lovebirds time these head turns precisely when their wings are covering their eyes, this minimises the time of obscured sight.
Consequently, they shorten phases of blurry and obscured sight into a fraction of the actual turning time, resulting in stable and clear vision during the rest of the manoeuvre.

The researchers suggest that the lovebird's rapid head turn probably enables them to make split second decisions during rapid turns.
The researchers also hope that the accuracy and speed of these visually guided flight-manoeuvres may inspire camera rotation design in drones to improve imaging.

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.