Valley Quail’s Airfoil

I had the delightful experience of seeing a beautiful quail family in Santa Cruz while traveling for work. The daddy quail sat atop a bush while mommy and chicks foraged below.

Finding the right curve for the top knot was a challenge – Mathstodon suggestions led me down a few paths and ended at a Joukowski transform for airfoils (thanks @rhinocratic@functional.cafe and everyone who helped).

I found myself using my favorite complex analysis resource by Juan Carlos Ponce Campuzano to play with this and visualize flow – I highly suggest you go play with these toys.

California quail digital art with a Joukowsky transform illustration and air currents moving around the top knot of the quail.

Sam – this is for you – for having the same love for these amazingly cute a gregarious birds.


2 responses to “Valley Quail’s Airfoil”

  1. Jim Brown Avatar
    Jim Brown

    It is always a delight to read of your discoveries, no less so today. I happened to be looking up the word “inflorescence” on a French website and came across the word “fractal.” It was in reference to the Bauhaus movement in Germany (Kandinsky, Albers, Delaunay, Klee and many others). While the French Wikipedia page used the term ‘fractal’, the English version of the page did not. Both pages had some nice illustrations that you might enjoy:
    French page: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflorescence
    English page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflorescence

    Have a nice day!

    1. fractalkitty Avatar

      Thanks for sharing- wonderful

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