phrase

• (of a bird, insect, or other winged creature) fly away.

  ‘Meanwhile, overhead, several woodcreepers cling to tree trunks, ready to snatch insects that take wing to avoid being trampled.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The crow preened its feathers and took wing again, gliding away into the trees.’
  • ‘My foot encountered a twig, and it snapped loudly in my hearing, causing a flock of black creatures that had been roosting in a neighboring tree to take wing.’
  • ‘But the birds always acted independently and never took wing together.’
  • ‘Families of busy mynahs chirruped, foraged for grasshoppers, and then trilled when they took wing as we approached.’
  • ‘Opening with a shot of a magnificent bald eagle taking wing over the vast conifer forests of Alaska, the film rapidly slides into a ‘do it by numbers’ action thriller and the cliches come thick and fast.’
  • ‘The ducks took wing, the multi-hued wading birds waddled off, and the once ubiquitous bass abandoned their breeding grounds in the former river basin - much to the dismay of hunters and sport fishermen.’
  • ‘On such an evening the local bat population takes wing, hundreds of them, feeding on the rising midges.’
  • ‘One evening, just as a superb, palest grey cock hen-harrier drifted into view above the reeds, two merlins took wing.’
  • ‘Suddenly and for no apparent reason all these wigeon took wing accompanied by a wild chorus and a mighty roar of wings.’