19 ms·
Bar-tailed Godwits regularly travel more than 7,000 miles non-stop
- retube 5y agoHow does the tracking work? So the birds are carrying a GPS chip? How is the location transmitted back to the researchers? - they are over the pacific for most of the flight
- F00Fbug 5y agoNot GPS - the locations are derived from measuring doppler shift over a handful of messages. If you know where the spacecraft is, you can derive the location of the transmitter. On a good day you can get 100-400m accuracy. Not close to GPS, but good enough for tracking animals. I managed the North American data center for www.argos-system.org for many years.
- raisedbyninjas 5y agoYes it carries a GPS receiver and transmits to a satellite periodically. Most of the time, most of the tracker package is turned off. It only weighs 5 grams.
- davide_benato 5y agomcenedella from TheLadders?
- marlone93 5y agoLots of people trying to compare our 10k-year old technology (200 years if we talk about machines, even less if we talk about robots) with something that evolved basically with billions of trial/errors in millions of years. At this point we should check which animal can travel as fast as a shuttle and go back and forth to the moon.
- robocat 5y agoIs that a trick question: because humans are animals?!
- adam-_- 5y agoLovely. My 2yo child really enjoys correctly identifying the Bar-tailed godwit (along with all the other birds) in this wonderfully illustrated book: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/what-its-like-to-be-a-bird-9781526604125/ https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/what-its-like-to-be-a-bird-978... So, this title made me smile and think of him :)
- FemmeAndroid 5y agoThanks for the recommendation. I think my little one will love this!
- da39a3ee 5y agoBased on this subthread I was thinking of buying this as a Christmas present for a young child. The first Amazon review does somewhat call that into question. > This is nowhere more evident than in the chapter on Touch. Somehow without ever sounding vulgar, it concludes with a hapless graduate student of the author masturbating an African buffalo weaver in the name of science! The use of the phrase “vigorous venery” in the description charmed me into awarding five stars on the spot. Not that I'm being closed-minded or prudish here; I'm open to the idea that a book could work on multiple levels, appealing to small children while also dealing with the difficult subject of avian masturbation.
- pytlicek 5y agoJust WOW! I am very fascinated by how nature has perfected it, in some aspects.
- jcun4128 5y agoYeah the design doesn't even seem like a gliding type eg. albatross or something. 10 days, what is its metabolism like.
- akudha 5y agoThe article says they don’t glide, they are actively flying the whole time. That is mind boggling. Don’t they need sleep? How do they know to start on the exact same day every year? Fly to the exact same place? I am a bit jealous of the scientists who get to work with such amazing creatures :)
- krylon 5y agoI think I read something about some birds being able to sleep with only one hemisphere of their brain at a time, similar to dolphins. The common swift often spends months at a time without touching ground. And lots of birds perform marvelous feats of long-range navigation, storks, for example, travel thousands of kilometers each year to return to their nest for breeding. They are amazing creatures.
- diroussel 5y agoI would suppose that they don’t “know” they just feel compelled. There are dragon flies that migrate from India to Africa. It takes three generations to complete the round trip. So how do they know? It must be just a feeling. I guess that a long time ago when India and Aftrica were adjacent parts of Gondwana land, the migration must have been quite short. But as the continents drifted apart the dragoon flies had to adapt to the longer route.
- boudin 5y agoIt is still possible to be knowledge that is passed on from generation to generation one way or another.
- tudorconstantin 5y agoAt an avg speed of 34.9 mph, or 54.2 km/h. Impressive!
- Y_Y 5y agoLaden or unladen?
- werdnapk 5y agoGonna have to lean towards laden as the bird was carrying a tracker.
- hypertele-Xii 5y agoWeighing 5 grams.
- dredmorbius 5y agoThat beats a coconut by a factor of 200.
- danw1979 5y agoI don’t see how this is relevant considering the bird is neither European or African and didn’t stop in either continent during its migration.
- rudian 5y agoSorry this isn’t the argument department.
- danw1979 5y agoYes it is.
- OneTimePetes 5y ago
- rudian 5y agoThe surprising part is that we have a battery that lasts that long for tracking “in real time” and doesn’t weigh the bird down. How’s that possible? The article mentions that is solar-powered, but even then how much power could it generate?
- tda 5y ago> Since landing in New South Wales, 4BBRW’s tracker has intermittently gone offline, which is common as birds rest because their feathers can cover the solar charging panel. So surprising you can run a GPS on a solar panel of about 1cm2 (my estimate), see picture in article
- foxfluff 5y agoThere are solar powered wristwatches with GPS.
- danw1979 5y agoArticle mentions a solar panel on the tracker, which seems positioned to receive charge when the bird is on the wing, because when the bird landed it’s feathers covered it up.
- Reason077 5y agoThe tracking device is solar powered so presumably can get away with a very small battery. They mention in the article that it goes offline at times while the bird is resting because it can be covered by feathers which prevent it from getting enough sunlight. That said, as if it wasn't impressive enough that Godwits can fly over 8000 miles non-stop, it's even more amazing that they can do it while burdened with a tracking device!
- joe__f 5y agoI don't know how much this type of bird weighs, but I imagine 5g for the tracker is a small percentage of its overall weight
- lordnacho 5y ago> setting the world record for the longest continual flight by any __land bird__ by distance What do they mean by land bird?
- diroussel 5y agoSea birds can fly for longer. For instance an albatross.
- sva_ 5y agoI imagine compared to water birds, such as seagulls.
- goodcanadian 5y agoOne that does not land on water.
- WithinReason 5y agoAs opposed to air birds
- streamofdigits 5y agoIncredible navigation skills too, though not quite "perfect" the paths seem to have occasionally some fairly large deviations Nature's benchmarks for economy of resources are still so very far ahead from anything human made
- kvgr 5y agoLooks like after to Fiji it wanted to go to New Zealand and decided mid flight to go to Australia :)
- PedroBatista 5y agoProbably because of New Zealand closing airspace due to COVID.
- boudin 5y agoCould deviations be weather driven as well?
- streamofdigits 5y agocould be, but it seems the correction signal only kicks in once there is a threshold discrepancy. I guess studying many such tracks could give some hints and correlated with what is known about the physiology of how these birds orient.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoThe waves down there didn't look familiar, so the bird decided to go back a little.
- streamofdigits 5y agoor maybe there was something in the air that didn't quite feel right :-)
- callesgg 5y agoWhat type of tracking tech would they be using? Satellite uplink?
- F00Fbug 5y agohttps://www.argos-system.org https://www.argos-system.org
- rq1 5y agoWhat's the record here? For instance swifts can fly for 10+ months without landing.
- jacquesm 5y agoAlbatros: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-amazing-albatrosses-162515529/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-amazing-al...
- kabes 5y agoNo it's the Swift. The albatross does land on water, so that's why the article states: without touching land...
- jacquesm 5y agoWater isn't land though, is it?
- dredmorbius 5y agoThat somewhat depends on precisely how cold the water in question is.
- jacquesm 5y agoHehe, good point. But for me 'land' means soil, though I'll take landing on an ice floe or the North Pole as land for the purposes of this discussion. I'm not sure how far North/South the Albatros' habitat extends, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they went there too.
- stef25 5y agoCurious about how / when they sleep
- Markoff 5y ago
- idoubtit 5y agoIt may be the longest distance recorded for a continual flight by any land bird, but it's not an extraordinary performance. For instance, common swifts can flight continuously for months. They obviously accumulate a huge distance during this time, even when they're not migrating. They live in Eurasia, from Lisbon to Vladivostok. And they winter in Africa, south of Congo. I think Vladivostok-Harare is a longer trip than Alaska-Australia, but it's probably hard to put sensors on small birds during their migration.
- darrenf 5y agoCame here to say something similar. Common swifts are amazing. Quoting Wikipedia: > Except when nesting, swifts spend their lives in the air, living on the insects caught in flight; they drink, feed, and often mate and sleep on the wing. Some individuals go 10 months without landing. No other bird spends as much of its life in flight. Contrary to common belief, swifts can take flight from level ground. Their maximum horizontal flying speed is 111.6 km/h. Over a lifetime they can cover millions of kilometers.
- ptha 5y agoI'm guessing it's being called extraordinary, because the godwits are flapping continually rather than gliding to take a break, from article: Unlike albatross or other long-flying seabirds, godwits are active flyers, not gliders—their wings are moving the whole time. “It just beggars belief, really,” Riegen says. “I mean, though I've known that for decades now, I still find it hard to imagine how anything can keep up that sort of effort 24-hours a day, without taking a break.”
- hypertele-Xii 5y agoOf course, the heart is a muscle many animals possess, that never rests.
- 83457 5y agoNot gliding any/much is amazing.
- ricksunny 5y agoDaily Mail seems to have covered a similar journey by this species last year, albeit slightly slower: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8835459/Jet-fighter-godwit-breaks-world-record-non-stop-bird-flight.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8835459/Jet-fighter... Still I wouldn’t have known about either without the HN-posted article.
- wombatmobile 5y agoAs a human being, I find these feats of navigation and stamina astounding. Human beings cannot do anything like this. These birds are awesome. Still, I find it peculiar and somehow off the mark to contextualise one bird's flight as a "world record". In the bird's world, these are ordinary events. The only standout feature of that flight is that no human had witnessed and recorded anything more superlative. It's OK that humans enjoy measuring things and celebrating the longest X or the biggest Y or the fastest Z. As I human, I get that. What's less OK, and somewhat diminishing of the bird's natural majesty, is that if another bird were to fly 2% slower or less far, humans might shrug their shoulders and ask, so what?
- Karsteski 5y agoHuman beings the best long distance runners on the planet. I think that's awesome as well ;)
- demosito666 5y agoThey aren't though, unless you start adding specifically tailored constraints like the run should happen in a very hot place. A trained horse can cover 100+ miles per day with a rider, a husky can run 100+ miles in a sledge, and they will probably outpace humans. Not to mention that only a tiny fraction of humans can even finish a marathon, which is no big deal for most wolves or horses. And camels and maybe ostriches will probably outrun us in hot climate as well (but that I didn't check).
- Karsteski 5y agoHmmm that's fair. Well none of these animals have internet and until they do, I'll continue to find humans just as impressive
- zimpenfish 5y ago> Not to mention that only a tiny fraction of humans can even finish a marathon Depends on the time constraints - I think a large percentage people can finish a marathon within 12 hours, even more if you allow up to 16 hours.
- georgekollias 5y agoWhat do they eat and drink during that time?
- hypertele-Xii 5y agoBirds don't sweat, so they needn't drink as much as us.
- Jensson 5y agoThey don't, they burn fat and muscles during the flight and lose a lot of body mass.
- culopatin 5y agoAm I the only one trying to wrap my head around the energy storage and sleep patterns of this bird?
- Markoff 5y agothey are just switching between parts of brain, essentially running autopilot, sharks do same, soe it's not really THAT impressive for bird to stay in flight for extended periods, 10 days is nothing spectacular
- _puk 5y agoFrigate birds power nap [0] so they can stay aloft for weeks, and other birds have been seen to sleep with half their brain at a time [1]. Pretty cool stuff! Have to wonder when this evolved, and whether it could be mimicked. 0: https://www.audubon.org/news/scientists-finally-have-evidence-frigatebirds-sleep-while-flying https://www.audubon.org/news/scientists-finally-have-evidenc... 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unihemispheric_slow-wave_sleep https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unihemispheric_slow-wave_sle...
- chrisweekly 5y agoTangent: monarch butterflies routinely fly across the Atlantic Ocean, which (given their relatively tiny size and fragility) strikes me as an equivalent feat.
- bedobi 5y agowtf I know this isn't an insightful comment, but wtf
- BrandoElFollito 5y agoI wonder if their size is not an advantage: if they start high enough they can basically be pushed by the winds with a very limited effort. Nothing scientific here, just a casual comment.
- q1w2 5y agoThey have a different extreme low-density advantage that they only need to stay up, and the wind blows them over.
- noneeeed 5y agoI'm constantly astonished by birds. They seem to be the ultimate evolutionary optimisers, which makes sense given their requirements. They seem to be incredibly efficeient with energy, weight and space. It's not just physical feats like this, but the way some of the the corvids pack incredible brains in a volume and mass significantly less than other non-flying animals with roughly similar levels of intellegence (although I appreciate that cross-species intelligence comparisons are always difficult).
- damagednoob 5y agoAnd these are the evolutionary traits that won. It's incredible to me to imagine all the configurations of different traits nature threw at this problem and all the sentience that was lost in the process.
- jasonhansel 5y agoIt's things like this that remind you that birds evolved from dinosaurs (in fact, recently birds have been described as just a kind of dinosaur, the only kind to survive the asteroid impact).
- kijin 5y agoWhen the climate turns against you, efficiency is the one trait that helps you survive with limited resources. The big heavy dinos didn't have that. Nor did the Neanderthals. The problem with efficiency is that when you have more than enough resources, you get obese very quickly. Like chickens and modern humans. :)
- mig39 5y agoI've heard the term "non-avian dinosaur" a lot these days.
- panick21_ 5y agoAll animals that survived to this day are the ultimate evolutionary optimisers that is why they still exists.
- lifeformed 5y agoAmazing that our state of the art technology is a fragile device that can fly for 30 minutes, while this ancient entity can fly nonstop, deriving energy from bugs and water, fly through storms, self repair any damage, has global navigation and local avoidance, and even can self replicate. It's humbling to realize how far off our technology is in certain areas from competing even with insects.
- imtringued 5y agoBuilding small robots is a pain. The commercially available actuators are huge and not very powerful if they don't come with a gearbox.
- jacquesm 5y agoThat's not the reason they're a pain. They are a pain because friction doesn't scale down nicely.
- dataflow 5y agoLet's give the technology 60 million years to be perfected and then compare. P.S. This aircraft flew from Japan to Hawaii in 118 hours solely powered by solar energy https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/solar-impulse-2-breaks-records-flying-around-world-without-fuel https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/solar-impulse-2-br... (n.b. this isn't to dispute the awesomeness of birds.)
- blackoil 5y agoHow would have evolution figured out this path/route? Also any reason why this long trip is made instead of flying to say California?
- jasonhansel 5y agoCost of living is too high there now.
- q1w2 5y agoProbably gradual optimizations in flying from Alaska, thru the Aleutian islands, to Kamchatka Russia, to Japan, to Korea, to China, to Taiwan, to the Philippines, to Indonesia, to Australia. In fact, going directly over the Pacific is only maybe ~30% shorter.
- totetsu 5y agoGot sick of the kite surfers in NZ and moved to Australia?
- mirekrusin 5y agoThere is also nice "oh shit, wrong way" squiggle after Fiji.
- DeathArrow 5y agoAnimal equivalent of ultramarathons. Only difference between animals and human athletes being that animals are doing it on daily basis without trying to beat records or win something.
- tpmx 5y agoHow did they make sure it didn't rest on a a ship or something?
- panick21_ 5y agoPeople might be interesting in some research from NASA about how Birds fly compared to planes and why they are more efficient. Albion H. Bowers was the Chief Scientist at NASA's Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center published some fantastic research: On Wings of the Minimum Induced Drag: Spanload Implications for Aircraft and Birds (https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20160003578 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20160003578) but here are some videos that get the message across: 2014: NASA's Albion H. Bowers - "Why Birds Don't Have Vertical Tails" - AMA EXPO 2014 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoT2upDbdUg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoT2upDbdUg) 2018: "Prandtl Wing Minimum Drag Update" - Al Bowers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCwtcDNB15E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCwtcDNB15E) 2021: Fly with Birds: Meeting with Albion H. Bowers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6oVXPkTnss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6oVXPkTnss) We could massively improve our efficiency by adopting this. Its a shame that we are flying as much as we do and using so much unnecessary fuel.
- 867-5309 5y agofrom Alaska to New Zealand, as the crow flies, how does one "stopover" in Australia?
- jhugo 5y agoBy making a detour from the most direct route. Is this a trick question?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- omosubi 5y agoThere's an excellent episode of In Our Time from the BBC about bird migrations - absolutely fascinating stuff - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wmk5j https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wmk5j
- daviddaviddavid 5y agoFor anyone wanting to fly along with the birds, the movie Winged Migration is truly stunning. It is shot in a very unique way where you really feel as though you're flying with the various birds. (Same director has another great movie called Microcosmos.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc_qpk2d-ao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc_qpk2d-ao
- whatever1 5y agoAccording to Wikipedia a godwit weighs ~0.5kg and it flew 7000 miles. If my calculations are right we are looking at 1.5kwh of energy and 0.2 wh per mile? Even if we assume that the bird is almost all fat and fat can store ~3500kcal per pound, the maximum stored energy is 4kwh. That gives us 0.8wh per mile. So we can safely say that the bird spent [1.5-4kwh] to do this trip. Teslas that are very efficient are in the order of 200 wh per mile. What the heck we have a lot of work to do.
- emj 5y agoThe record for really small "trains" is 0,52 Wh/km (0,8 Wh/mile) https://www.delsboelectric.se/resultat https://www.delsboelectric.se/resultat
- queuebert 5y agoGodwits aren't carrying a bunch of fat mammals around. Try normalizing by mass.
- whatever1 5y agoA kilo of tesla cannnot travel a single mile. Half kilo of this bird can travel 7000 miles non stop. It makes no sense to normalize by weight because it does not scale by weight.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- marginalia_nu 5y agoMass isn't great either, due to scaling laws. Physics simply behaves differently at different scales. An ant can lift a hundred times its body weight, but if you scale it up to human size it collapses under its own weight and immediately dies. You can drop an injection moulded plastic toy car a hundred times its height into the ground and it won't even dent. If you make a car frame out of the same materials and with the same techniques it will likely fall apart before it's off the conveyor belt. If you make a scale model of a planetary, you'll struggle getting it to start spinning around its center of mass through gravitational forces.
- pvaldes 5y agoIs a Scolopacidae. This means that can't feed in the air and makes the voyage even more impressive. We have two similar species in Europe.
- Steltek 5y agoMeta: The title of this post was different earlier this morning. The change doesn't quite conform to the rules, using a subtitle(?) rather than the actual title. But more interestingly, the bizarre bird name and lack of context actually makes it seem more clickbait-y, not less. Perhaps a title change striving to follow the letter of the law but not the spirit of it? Caveat: I'm not arguing for another change or passing judgment. I just thought the change itself was notable. And bird names are ridiculous.
- dang 5y agoWe often switch to subtitles when they're less baity. It's a legit source for an HN title. In this case I'd say it's far less baity than "These Mighty Shorebirds Keep Breaking Flight Records—And You Can Follow Along", which is kind of embarrassing. I agree with you that "bar-tailed godwit" is an invitation to dumb internet jokes (a couple popped into my mind as soon as I saw that), but so far the thread is mercifully free of them. p.s. Here's a past explanation about all this, with links to others: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22932244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22932244.
- 1-more 5y agoPretty rad that the bird flies so far that it has names in languages as far apart (geographically) as Russian, Yupiq, Inuit, and te reo Māori.
- nimajneb 5y agoThis is fascinating. Thanks for the link to read.
- spaetzleesser 5y agoI am not sure about these birds but some migrating birds reduce their brain sizes significantly during these trips. This saves a lot of energy.
- robocat 5y agoI live in Christchurch, NZ, and so I see a variety of long distance travellers in the swamplands and estuaries, including bar-tailed godwits at the end of Southshore spit https://newsline.ccc.govt.nz/news/story/draft-godwits-arrival-heralds-spring https://newsline.ccc.govt.nz/news/story/draft-godwits-arriva... A huge amount of housing and infrastructure here wouldn’t be allowed now, because when it was built it would have disrupted rare birds (or perhaps that is why the birds are now rare). It does make one feel more aware of how the world is connected when you realise that migratory birds need to survive stopovers in other countries like China. The birds also need to survive in New Zealand, where just a few signs and some social convention prevents dogs from attacking nesting sites (edit: or people disturbing them), and it would be hard to lock down the area since many people would strongly assert their rights to go there.
- veb 5y agoI'm in Dunedin, but I didn't even know these birds came here! That's amazing. Do you know if DOC or whoever are planning anything to help? People aren't allowed to go into the breeding areas on the Otago Peninsula for Albatrosses, surely something similar could be done for these? I just wish our govt would assert more control in our EEZ from illegal fishing. It's very saddening when you read articles about how the adult birds get caught in the nests etc. Yet the most pernicious threats to albatrosses today are not to chicks but to adult birds. Along with other seabirds, they are locked in a competitive battle with humankind for the food resources of the sea—and the birds are losing. This is not just because of the efficiency of modern fishing practices but because fishing equipment—hooks, nets and trawl wires—inflicts a heavy toll of injury and death.[0] [0] https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/in-harms-way/ https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/in-harms-way/
- robocat 5y agoThe birds get a lot of articles, and the topic is well known to locals. I believe there is a trust that organises some conservation effort for them, but my Google-fu couldn’t find anything online about it. There are hundreds that nest at the end of the spit. You can see how close to residential areas it is, a short walk: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Southshore,+Christchurch/@-43.5497825,172.7291722,14z https://www.google.com/maps/place/Southshore,+Christchurch/@... The reserve gets quite a lot of foot traffic, many locals walking the beach, and some visitors in summer (being at the end of a cul-de-sac helps reduce visitors). It would not surprise me if the end was cordoned off in the future, although I presume that would require a marine reserve status or something as I’m not sure under what circumstances the government can just fence off foreshore areas. Aside: I recently found one dolphin vertebra, which would be legal to have if I notified the right people. “you are entitled to collect bones, teeth, ivory or ambergris that have already separated naturally from a dead marine mammal provided DOC is notified as soon as possible and are given details of the time, place and circumstances under which these items are found.”[1]. You can’t chop out a bone from a carcass: “if anyone removes any part from a dead marine mammal this also may be interpreted as taking that mammal ... liable to imprisonment for up to 6 months, or a fine of up to $250,000” + $10k per animal. The actual law[2] says: “by any person who finds or collects bones, teeth, ivory, or ambergris that have already separated naturally from a marine mammal if that person, as soon as practicable, notifies the Director-General or an officer of the find, and gives details of the time, place, and circumstances under which the find was made” so notify both? Aside 2: I found an albatross wing on the beach a few months ago - much longer than my arm. I am pretty sure that it is highly endangered and illegal to even pick that up[3][4]. However a friend is taking it in to the museum where there is someone that can decide what to do with it. I have found dead penguins in Dunedin and Kaikoura, and a penguin wing at Brighton. [1] https://oceanlaw.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/MarineMammalsProtection.pdf https://oceanlaw.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/MarineMamm... [2] https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1978/0080/latest/whole.html https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1978/0080/latest/... [3] https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/sites/default/files/tuhinga.25.2014.pt3_.p25-101.miskelly_1.pdf https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/sites/default/files/tuhinga.25.20... [4] https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/118796601/fisheries-hook-line-and-likely-sinking-antipodean-wandering-albatross https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/118796601/fisheries-hook...
- standardUser 5y agoI immediately smelled bullshit in the headline because surely they don't mean non-stop in the literal sense. An animal has to eat! But no, I was wrong, these birds fly 8+ days in a row without sleep or food (or a complete mental breakdown, presumably). Though I do find it odd the article doesn't discuss the food and sleep issue more.
- jychang 5y agoThe bird isn't flapping for 8+ days straight, burning calories. They're soaring with their wings locked, more akin to a glider. With lower energy use, lower food consumption is needed. No animal can actively move their muscles 8+ days straight without refueling.* *[Citation needed], because nature loves to prove me wrong
- dr_orpheus 5y ago"Unlike albatross or other long-flying seabirds, godwits are active flyers, not gliders—their wings are moving the whole time." The article seems to indicate that they are, in fact, flapping their wings the whole time.
- adamrezich 5y agohow in the world do their bodies store so much energy?
- dr_orpheus 5y agoYeah, that part I'm not clear on. Some birds do rely mostly on airborne insects for food. Another article I linked in this thread had a note that swifts primarily eat airborne insects and can stay aloft for 10 months at a time.
- julian37 5y agoI came here wondering the same thing. A random google search turned up this: https://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/news/science/five-bird-species-that-make-the-longest-migrations/ https://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/news/science/five-bird-spe... > Researchers have learned that digestive tracts of long-distance migrants work overtime prior to migration. Food intake is increased, and the food is metabolized and stored as fat, which serves as the birds’ flight fuel. Bar-tailed Godwits store fat until it makes up about one half their weight. Then the digestive system shuts down so metabolic energy can be maximized for muscle use. Astounding.
- tomcam 5y ago“Bar-tailed Godwit” sounds like a Shakespearean insult