Birds fly better when they have full belly

2001/10/18 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Zoologia

When we have a full stomach after a good meal it is not convenient to get into the water to swim, but flying is something else. A new research shows that birds fly better when they have a belly full of food. A team of researchers from the Lund University of Sweden has investigated the thick timbres that migrate annually from Siberia to Africa.

According to aerodynamics, birds with less weight could better adapt to the long flights requiring migrations. Experiments have been carried out in wind tunnel with thick timbres and the result of the investigations has been different. The birds have been flown between 6 and 10 hours on an empty stomach and then fed them to completely fill the stomach, they have put the same work. The good filling of the belly brings more advantage than the loss of this weight in aerodynamism. The bird on a full stomach has at its disposal a lot of energy, so it is stronger on long flights.

Another study analyzes the type V formations adopted by birds in migrations and detects that flying well organized in group save a lot of energy. Type V organization allows the generation of air currents and their easy planning. When the pelicans fly in a platoon, they spend between 11 and 14% less energy. If we look at a group, it is observed that birds that go to the bottom strike much less the wings than the previous ones.