The United States Fish & Wildlife Service is breathing a collective sigh of relief after the world's oldest banded wild bird returned to a wildlife refuge to mate.
Laysan albatross Wisdom was first banded by renowned ornithologist Chandler Robbins in 1956, and is estimated to be at least 64 years old. She has since "nested consecutively" at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, a USFWS facility in the northern Pacific Ocean that houses the world's largest albatross colony.
Impressive Bird Flying Formations: Photos
Based on decades of observations, the Service believes that Wisdom has raised three dozen chicks and logged more than six million miles of ocean flight time.
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) population was devastated by the commercial driftnet fishery, which killed an estimated 17,500 Laysan albatross in the year 1990 alone. In recent years, however, improvements in "seabird avoidance measures" have drastically reduced the amount of albatross caught as bycatch, and the once-plummeting population has begun to stabilize.
Birds' Nests In Bizarre Urban Places: Photos
The IUCN currently classifies the species as Near Threatened, citing plastic ingestion and human disturbance as continuing threats.
"In the face of dramatic seabird population decreases worldwide -- 70% drop since the 1950's when Wisdom was first banded -- Wisdom has become a symbol of hope and inspiration," Refuge Manager Dan Clark said in a USFWS blog post.
"We are a part of the fate of Wisdom and it is gratifying to see her return because of the decades of hard work conducted to manage and protect albatross nesting habitat."
Article first appeared on Discovery's blog Dscovrd.
Wisdom is the world's oldest banded bird.
Birds in flight often arrange themselves in aerodynamically optimum positions, according to a new paper in the
that helps to explain how birds fly in such impressive formations. Lead researcher Steven Portugal and his colleagues focused their study on northern bald ibises, but many bird species also exhibit the amazing flight behavior. Portugal, a University of London Royal Veterinary College researcher, told Discovery News that birds could be using three things to achieve their flying precision: "(1) vision – watching the bird in flight to get all the information they need, (2) feathers – sensing the changes in pressure, wind etc. through their flight feathers, and (3) positive feedback – i.e. they just fly around and when it feels easier/better they stay in that position."
The researchers determined that birds try to find "good air," meaning airflows (not just wind, but even the air created by other flapping wings) that minimize their energy expenditure and help them to get where they plan to go. Conversely, birds avoid regions of "bad air" that could work against them.
Many birds fly in distinctive V-formations. Portugal said, "The intricate mechanisms involved in V formation flight indicate remarkable awareness and ability of birds to respond to the wing path of nearby flock-mates. Birds in V formation seem to have developed complex phasing strategies to cope with the dynamic wakes (turbulent air) produced by flapping wings."
Military planes sometimes fly in what is known as an "echelon formation," which mirrors nearly the exact same flight formation of many birds. This particular bird version is a variation of the "V," only with a rounded edge.
The U.S. Navy's famous flight demonstration squadron The Blue Angels often flies in a trademark "diamond formation" once popularized by fighter-bomber pilots. In it, the pilots maintain an 18-inch wing tip to canopy separation. Birds can fly even more tightly together.
The term "murmuration" refers to a flock of starlings. These birds can create dramatic patterns in the sky, such as this one over marshlands near Tønder, Denmark. Other small birds, such as sandpipers, may also create what look to be dazzling aerial ballets in the sky as they fly en masse.
Even birds flying very close to land can do so in remarkable unison. Here, a formation was photographed as the birds flew over the beach at Camperduin in the Netherlands.
The classic "V" formation has all sorts of variations. In this case, three separate -- yet united -- groups create an arrow-like effect in the sky.
Alfred Hitchcock's classic horror film "The Birds" included many scenes where numerous birds blanketed the sky. Up close, these starlings look small and harmless but, as a huge murmuration, their power becomes evident.
From the earliest planes to those in design today, aircraft have been modeled after birds. It's no wonder. Every inch of this sleek northern bald ibis, snapped while flying over Tuscany, adds to the bird's flying prowess. Its 53-inch wingspan and powerful, synchronized wing beats must have captivated people in the ancient world too, since ancient Egyptians and other early cultures featured the birds prominently in their artwork and legends.