the wandering albatross has the longest
wingspan of any bird alive today
and an albatross can do something hatsey
apparently couldn’t
hunt from the air
these big birds spend most of their
lives at sea
scouring the ocean’s surface for food
they only come in to land
to breed
this royal albatross has made a pit stop
on new zealand’s south island
where her two-month-old chick is waiting
for food
this big baby can polish off half a kilo
of fish in a single sitting
to find its next meal mum will have to
scour a mere 1 000 kilometers of ocean
so given she weighs as much as a small
dog
how does she manage to fly
her enormous wings get her big body
airborne
the secret to the albatross staying up
there though
is in its nostrils
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special sensory organs measure the speed
of the surrounding air
what they’re searching for are changes
in air speed
but the water’s surface the air is
almost still
slowed as it hits the waves
10 meters up it’s windier
as an albatross climbs into the faster
air it gets free lift
then turning sharply it plunges down
into the slower air
gravity has helped it accelerate
to 120 kilometers per hour
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downward momentum catapults it back up
again like a roller coaster into the
lift of the faster air
it’s called dynamic soaring
and crucially
it means they can fly without flapping
their wings
[Music]
by exploiting the energy of the wind
they expend almost none of their own
this aerial efficiency is what makes
such a big body capable of flying
non-stop for over 16 000 kilometers
without the need to set foot on dry land
for years at a time
