I've found that hitting the bird when it's roughly chest height seems to be the best. I think that potentially there's a big distance to be got by getting the trajectory just right so the penguin bounces for the first time about the 350 mark.
And I have been spending *way* too much time on this game.
I got a 588.3, but doubt I can repeat it. It seems much harder to hit the penguin so it goes a good distance and still bounces than it did on the original.
I'm sorry if this was posted already. Anyway to get it to fly far, you have to hit it high enough that you can get some distance, but low enough that it slides once it lands.