Slashdot Mirror
Migrating Birds Take Hundreds of Powernaps.
Ant writes "MSNBC reports that to help make up for sleep lost during marathon night flights, migratory birds take hundreds of powernaps during the day, each lasting only a few seconds, a new study suggests.
Every autumn, Swainson's thrushes fly up to 3,000 miles from their breeding grounds in northern Canada and Alaska to winter in Central and South America. Come spring, the birds make the long trek back. The birds fly mostly at night and often for long hours at a time, leaving little time for sleep."
Maybe the birds were getting those drowsy sessions and 'power naps' BECAUSE they were caged and being subjected to go through utterly boring and long observation periods when they would rather be flying over the ocean somewhere. Or they just closed their eyes every few minutes to curse the researchers to hell for caging them in the first place.
But seriously, studies of this kind tend to lose credibility when they start predicting the free behaviour of species while testing them under captive conditions. Going by this logic, I can say that lions in jungle start rattling the nearest metal bars or objects they can find when they feel hungry because I observed this behaviour in a bunch of lions in the nearest zoo. I know its stretching the point a bit, and that 'some' behaviour show consistence irrespective of the state of the subject animal/bird, BUT trying to deduce migratory behaviour (out of all things) from a bunch of observational data collected from birds in cages is stretching it too far IMHO.
Politicians and Pedophiles: Two groups of exploitive bastards who are most dangerous when they're thinking of children.
Birds don't have money.
the approximate distance it would fall is s = ut + 1/2at**2 ... 0+1/2*32*9*9 feet ... 1296 feet.
A few theories from me as an armchair scientist. If it has a way to lock it's wings it will fall slower. It will loose several seconds of direction control but maybe it has a mechanism to compensate.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Sheesh. When did all widely-believed falsehoods become urban legends, instead of just plain old legends, myths, etc?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
On the contrary. Maritimers know their stuff about birds; it's the urban population that makes these things up.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!