The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT   Boffins:
Jurassic avians were more like Angry birds than modern ones
Couldn't flap wings, needed a push or jump to get going   Bone-
bothering boffins say that early birds were actually fairly
rubbish at flying, so much so that they couldn't get airborne
unless they jumped off from a high point or otherwise gained a
helping push.  Artist&amp;amp;#39;s impression of the
Archaeoteryx lithographica in flight  The Archaeopteryx in
glide. Credit: Carl Buell  “We don’t think these things could
take off from the ground,” explains Nicholas Longrich of Yale’s
Department of Geology and Geophysics and lead author of a new
study in to the matter. “They can’t fly like a modern bird.”
The geoboffins raked through the fossils of two types of
primitive winged beasts, the Jurassic bird Archaeopteryx
lithographica and the feathered dinosaur Anchiornis huxleyi, and
found that the archaic avians probably did more gliding or
ballistic soaring - Angry Birds style - than actual flyin