Every year, Jason Babbidge competes in the skate-sailing race on the two-and-a-half-mile-wide glass surfaces left behind by slowly flying birds when they occassionally explode before disappearing. This year’a race is not a win for Jason, but even worse is what happens when his brother Daniel climbs aboard one of the birds afterwards.
Michael Main
They were called slow birds because the flew through the air—at the stately pace of three feet per minute.

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  1. “Slow Birds” by Ian Watson, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1983.
  2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Ian Watson