Albatrosses Use Their Nostrils To Fly | Nature's Biggest Beasts

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 into the 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 the 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 special sensory organs measure the speed of the surrounding air
what they're searching for are changes in airspeed 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 a free lift
then turning sharply it plunges down into the slower air gravity has helped it accelerate
to 120 kilometers per hour 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 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