Here’s a shocker. The Sooty Shearwater, an 18” long seabird, migrates up to 40,000 miles a year, along a route that crosses the Pacific Ocean.
Working down in New Zealand, a crew of UC Santa Cruz biologists electronically tagged the legs of 33 shearwaters in early 2005. They recovered working tags when over half of them returned, carrying a record of where each bird flew.
Leaving in April, the Shearwaters crossed the Pacific Ocean (about 500 miles), pausing long enough to grab enough fish, squid, and krill to keep them alive. Part of their food they could gather from the ocean surface – to get the rest, they had to dive up to 200 feet into the water!
Sooner or later all the tagged birds landed to spend their winter in one of three areas - off the coast of Japan, Alaska, or California.
There was no traveling from place to place – each bird started south from its own wintering area. And all the tagged Shearwaters crossed the equator within a 10-day period in October. Is that impressive, or what!
##performancing
December 1st, 2006 @ 7:38 am
[…] Like their human counterparts, birds migrate at varying speeds for varying distances. The arctic tern used to be considered the long distance champion. Not satisfied with a single summer each year, it flies all the way to Antarctica for a second summer, making a round trip of 22,000 miles. Now the record seems to be held by the Sooty Shearwater. […]