The Great Frigatebird Is Like The Energizer Bunny — It Keeps Going And Going And.

By Kimberly Solis on October 1, 2016

The great frigatebird, a species of seabird found across the world’s tropical seas, possesses a 7 foot wingspan — the largest of any bird species its size. Past research had indicated that these adept pilots could stay aloft as long as a week at a time. It turns out, that the experts and even Christopher Columbus, who noticed the birds on his 1492 voyage to the Americas — and remarked “does not alight on the sea nor depart from land 20 leagues (70 miles)” — had vastly underestimated the magnificent bird’s flying prowess and smarts!

The indepth study of the frigatebirds, published in the journal Science on July 1, was led by Henri Weimerskirch of the Chizé Center for Biological Studies in France. It involved attaching solar-powered transmitters to 50 frigatebirds on Europa Island, a channel located between Mozambique and Madagascar. In addition to tracking each bird’s location, the tiny devices that weighed less than 10 grams, also collected data on the bird’s heart rate, speed, and altitude. From June to October, adult birds left the island and headed northwest to the Seychelles, a distance of about 1,548 miles. The researchers, who observed the birds from 2011 to 2015, say that instead of heading to their destination directly, many of the birds flew in large loops around the equator and the Indian Ocean.

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First evidence birds nap in flight without dropping out of sky

3 August 2016

I only dropped off for a second…

Bryson Voirin, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology.

By Alice Klein

The debate has finally been put to bed. Wearable brainwave recorders confirm that birds do indeed sleep while flying, but only for brief periods and usually with one half of their brain.

We know several bird species can travel vast distances non-stop, prompting speculation that they must nap mid-flight. Great frigatebirds, for example, can fly continuously for up to two months. On the other hand, the male sandpiper, for one, can largely forgo sleep during the breeding season, hinting that it may also be possible for birds to stay awake during prolonged trips.

To settle this question, Niels Rattenborg at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany, and his colleagues fitted small brain activity monitors and movement trackers to 14 great frigatebirds.

12-second naps

During long flights, the birds slept for an average of 41 minutes per day, in short episodes of about 12 seconds each. By contrast, they slept for more than 12 hours per day on land. Frigatebirds in flight tend to use one hemisphere at a time to sleep, as do ducks and dolphins, but sometimes they used both.

“Some people thought that all their sleep would have to be unihemispheric otherwise they would drop from the sky,” says Rattenborg. “But that’s not the case – they can sleep with both hemispheres and they just continue soaring.”

Sleep typically took place as the birds were circling in rising air currents, when they did not need to flap their wings.

Weather eye

During this time, the brain hemisphere connected to the eye facing the direction of the turn was more likely to stay awake.

Continued …