Category: Birds
The Pacific Loon is a common site along the Pacific coast, as well as large lakes throughout its expansive range. Every year, during three months of summer, they departs their wintering grounds to breed in the inland Arctic tundra. Abundant water is always an important part of the Pacific loon’s habitat, as they cannot take flight from land and need 30-50 of open water to gain enough momentum for take-off.
Asleep at the wheel?
Can you imagine spending nearly all of your life in the air? The common swift doesn’t have to - it just does! From the day this bird learns to fly, it almost never touches the ground voluntarily - it eats, drinks, mates, and may even sleep while flying. While sleep walking can be problematic in humans, many birds have the ability to enter a state called unihemispheric slow-wave sleep, where one half of the brain sleeps as the other remains alert. This method of “sleeping with one eye open,” is a great way to avoid becoming another animal’s meal, and has led to the suspicion that these birds, who almost never willingly land, also sleep while in flight!
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