{"id":40792,"date":"2013-10-09T16:05:54","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T12:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/?p=40792"},"modified":"2013-10-09T16:05:54","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T12:05:54","slug":"flying-alpine-swifts-stay-airborne-for-200-days-in-longest-recorded-flight-made-by-any-bird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/en\/?p=40792","title":{"rendered":"Flying Alpine swifts stay airborne for 200 days in longest recorded flight made by any bird"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Alpine-Swifts-the-longest-recorded-flight.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-40779\" alt=\"Alpine Swifts - the longest recorded flight\" src=\"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Alpine-Swifts-the-longest-recorded-flight.jpg\" width=\"634\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Alpine-Swifts-the-longest-recorded-flight.jpg 634w, https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Alpine-Swifts-the-longest-recorded-flight-300x198.jpg 300w, https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Alpine-Swifts-the-longest-recorded-flight-452x300.jpg 452w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 634px) 100vw, 634px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Researchers who tracked a group of migrating birds have discovered that they flew for 200 days non-stop between Africa and Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists say that the 1,240-mile flight carried out by three Alpine Swifts is the longest recorded flight made by any bird.<\/p>\n<p>Although experts have speculated that a related species, the common swift, remains airborne for much of the year, the latest research is the first to provide data over such a long period.<\/p>\n<p>A team from the Swiss Ornithological Institute and the Bern University of Applied Sciences strapped tiny electronic monitoring devices to six alpine swifts before theu flew south for the winter.<\/p>\n<p>When they returned north again, the team recaptured three of the birds and downloaded the data from the devices.<\/p>\n<p>It showed that the birds did not stop moving from late September until early spring.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the team&#8217;s initial scepticism of the results, they found that the birds didn&#8217;t land to rest or sleep, but instead spent much of the night gliding and eat while still airborne.<\/p>\n<p>Much of their diet consists of aerial plankton, bugs and spiders that are swept into the sky by high winds.<\/p>\n<p>The birds are able to skim lakes and rivers while in flight for liquids.<\/p>\n<p>What the scientists were unable to discern is why the birds spend so long in the air.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Liechti said: &#8216;We can only speculate as to what the profit is of staying airborne all the time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Is it avoiding predation? Parasites? We don&#8217;t know.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Researchers who tracked a group of migrating birds have discovered that they flew for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":40779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[224,155,137],"tags":[2542],"class_list":["post-40792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-other-countries","category-world","tag-flying-alpine-swifts","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}