Social network helps birds pick best way of using thermal updrafts
Date: November 7, 2018
Source: Swansea University
A new study has revealed how vultures use their very own social networks to work out the best way to take advantage of thermal updrafts to help them fly vast distances.
The research, carried out by a team from Swansea University led by PhD student Hannah Williams, examined how the vultures seemed to make risky but efficient choices in flight when they observed the flight of other vultures in the network.
Their paper Social eavesdropping allows for a more risky gliding strategy by thermal soaring birds has just been published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface and Hannah hopes it will help provide a better understanding about the strategies birds use to navigate the aerial landscape.
She said: "Thermal updrafts are chaotic in their occurrence, so it makes sense for these heavy birds to 'eavesdrop' on the movements of other birds to find thermals, just as human pilots do when gliding.
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