It has been over three decades that increase in wind speed is being observed. According to the latest research, strong wind has boosted flying speed of birds.
This research has been published in one of the latest issues of popular science journal. In this research, link between the climatic changes and bird’s speed has been defined. According to this research, the increase in bird’s speed is quite beneficial for birds. First, it reduces the length of hunting trips, improves breeding success and causes the birds to gain weight.
The research was mainly conducted on the wandering albatross. Albatross is a bird that passes most of its time in flying. The bird came to the land only for food or to breed. The southern ocean is privileged to be home to a huge population of albatrosses. This is the main reason why only albatrosses have been chosen for this research.
Henri Weimerskirch, a senior researcher, told Discovery News
“Winds have increased overall at the world’s oceans, with some areas being more affected than others, but still the increase is global. The advantage we have with the Crozet is that we have a long term record of the population parameters, and also the movements of the birds, which is a unique situation.”
The evidence of increase in bird’s speed is backed by 40 years of research. Weimenrkirch and his team have done the analysis over the information collected after the research of almost 40 years. The feeding and breeding behavior of albatrosses has been observed for decades. From 1989, researchers started using satellite transmitters to track travel of albatrosses.
According to the researchers, 15% increase in the wind speed has been observed over past few decades. As a result of this increase in wind speed, there came a significant increase in the flying speed of the birds. The albatrosses that were travelling only 311 miles in 1990 are travelling almost 435 miles per day as recorded in 2010.This increase in flying speed of birds has caused improvement in the breeding process.
Now the question arises that whether this change has affected other species or not? The answer is in the following comment of Weimenrkirch,
“Many albatrosses and petrels are using wind for their movements, either when they search for food during central place foraging movements, or for their migratory movements over the oceans, thus these changes should undoubtedly affect many other species”
Albatrosses have also been researched by Shaffer, assistant professor of biology at San Jose University.He studied albatrosses for his doctoral thesis. His comment adds to the authenticity of the research. While talking to the discovery news, Shaffer said
“This is one of the most surprising aspects of the study and is consistent with the changes in wind patterns because wind is everything to these birds and body mass changes influence their flight performance. To see such changes over this time period is amazing.”
This is really an important research that provides grounds to the researchers who aim to further explore the trends of changing winds.