I am developing an iPhone game in which birds bounce.
I have set up the images for animating the wings of the flying bird like this:
[imgBird[i] set
You'll want to use Core Animation instead of manually moving the birds. Take a look at CAAnimation in the docs. You basically set up an animation, the path you want it to move along, and just tell it to run. It'll take care of the rest. It also has support for easing which will make the pace slow down and accelerate so it looks more natural.