WHEN it comes to flight in the natural world, the first creatures that come to mind are the birds.

While all birds rely basically on a similar wing structure, the various species have evolved a variety of wing designs that allow them to have very different flight characteristics.

For example, a blue tit flies with rapid wing beats from short, stubby wings to give itself quick acceleration and good manoeuvrability which is just what you need to live in among the tangle of woodland scrub.

On the other hand, buzzards have huge broad and long wings that carry them for hours with little effort high above the landscape to enable them to search huge tracks of land for carrion.

My favourite fliers, though, have to be swifts and swallows whose swept thin wings give them breathtaking flight performance in terms of speed, efficiency and manoeuvrability.

Birds are far from having a monopoly of the skies, though. If you watch the swifts hunting insects over a pool at dusk, there is only the briefest of windows before these wonderful fliers are replaced in the skies by species of bats.

Watching the grace and skill of these it is hard to judge which animal is the better flier.

Bat wings are much different to birds, but they operate among the same principle. These two types of animal are the only vertebrates that truly fly, but there are a few other vertebrates that glide.

These include species of lizard, a snake from the reptiles and a couple of species of 'flying fish'.

Outside the world of animals with backbones, there are of course the insects that, without a doubt, are the true masters of flight. You just have to watch the mastery and precision of a housefly.

In my opinion, though, the most outstanding flier of them all has to be dragonfly. Perhaps it is their size and bold colours that attract me to them, but if you ever get the opportunity to observe one of these while in flight, you cannot help but be impressed.

At this time of the year the most spectacular of all our dragonflies will be emerging. The Emperor Dragonfly is large, in fact it is well over 10cm in length with striking blue, green metallic colouration and its skill in flight is beyond belief.

This dragonfly has a large range and can easily be found hunting miles from the pool where it spent its larval life, so keep an eye out for it in your gardens.

There are no other invertebrates other than the insects that have taken to the skies in such a spectacular way.

I can think of one other animal without a backbone, however, that has some powers of flight.

Some spiders, while not using wings to fly, have taken to the air in much the same way as a hot air balloon. They send out long threads of silk into the air, which then catch on a breeze and drag the spider into uncontrolled flight.

It is not only animals that have a claim to flight.

Quite a few plant species have developed some aerodynamic skills for distributing their seeds. Probably the most famous of these is the sycamore.

The seeds of this plant have attached twisted wings that, when combined with the weight of the seed, cause the seed and wing structure to rotate, thus generating lift much in the same way as a helicopter takes off.

This allows the sycamore to shed its seed far away from the tree and potentially into a place well away from the parent tree's shade.

Other examples of aerodynamic plants around here are ash tree seeds, or keys and in a similar way as the ballooning spiders we have willows and poplar trees, and of course, the dandelions and willow herbs.