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The common swift (Apus apus) is a remarkable bird found all over Europe, northern Asia and Africa. Because it migrates into sub-Saharan Africa, and because roost sites have never been found there, some scientists have speculated that it stays aloft during its entire non-breeding season.
A group of Swedish scientists attached data loggers, light sensors, and accelerometers to thirteen common swifts and monitored them for two years. They found that these birds remain airborne for 10 months of their non-breeding periods. All of the birds were airborne >99% of the time, but several didn't land at all during those 10 months. Their work is being published in the journal Current Biology .
Hedenström says that common swifts have adapted to a low-energy lifestyle, but his team does not yet know whether the birds sleep while aloft. "Most animals suffer dramatically from far less sleep loss," says Niels Rattenborg, a neurobiologist at Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany. "But these birds seem to have found a trick through evolution that allows them to get by on far less sleep."
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by bzipitidoo on Monday October 31 2016, @07:59PM
Wow, now they can make sensors and transmitters small and light enough to monitor small birds for months! What a story!
What was that, something about birds staying airborne all the time? Oh, well, yeah, but don't most fish swim all the time, never rest on the bottom?
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @08:04PM
But fish float when dead.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 31 2016, @08:08PM
I wonder if those birds that landed only had to do so because of the excess weight of the monitors?
Flying for months? I know people who never shut their mouths for months at a time. Mothers taught them how to speak at ages as early as 1 1/2, and they've been trying to teach them to shut up ever since.
(Score: 3, Funny) by jimshatt on Monday October 31 2016, @09:16PM
(Score: 5, Funny) by Bogsnoticus on Tuesday November 01 2016, @05:56AM
I saw a birdie flying high
It dropped a message from the sky
As I wiped it from my eye
I thought "Thank fuck cows don't fly"
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @10:56PM
I'd argue that's a much simpler feat. If the buoyancy of your body matches the water of your target level, then you don't have to expend much energy to stay mostly where you are. For example, if a fish suddenly died at such a position, it would mostly remain there, gradually drifting up or down (assuming not eaten).
Even if a bird finds an up-draft to reduce the energy needed to stay aloft, it still has to practice good control to stay in the right spot. If it suddenly died, even if its wings stayed stiff in the same position it was last alive, it would be tumbling down within seconds. Its "death drift rate" (for lack of a better term) would be roughly 50x that of the dead fish, and in a predictable direction: down.
(Score: 3, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday November 01 2016, @10:27AM
Yup. Just waiting now for evolution to come up with bouyant hydrogen-filled swifts.
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday November 01 2016, @10:19AM
I can imagine that sensor technology has advanced to the point that all of them can fit on one small smd chip. What hasn’t changed is battery energy density. To record data over two years the interval between sensor polling must be measured in hours. Unless they track down these birds and replace their battery every week. Also depends on how they interpret the data. I imagine the senor data of a bird on a swaying branch or boat is almost indistinguishable to one in flight.