{"id":9257,"date":"2026-06-12T18:44:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/ground_post\/nasa-funded-research-follows-bird-flight-birds-follow-their-noses\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T18:44:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:44:25","slug":"nasa-funded-research-follows-bird-flight-birds-follow-their-noses","status":"publish","type":"ground_post","link":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/ground_post\/nasa-funded-research-follows-bird-flight-birds-follow-their-noses\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA-Funded Research Follows Bird Flight; Birds Follow Their Noses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div xmlns:default=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" id=\"single-blog-1227081\" data-content-type=\"blog-entry\" data-blog-name=\"science-news\" itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p>You might think birds\u00a0skimming over the ocean\u00a0wouldn\u2019t seek wind unless it was pushing them in the right\u00a0direction,\u00a0but\u00a0NASA-funded\u00a0researchers have learned that storm petrels find\u00a0stiff crosswinds\u00a0worth\u00a0the slowdown,\u00a0in return for the clues and cues the gusts carry.<\/p>\n<p>In a\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/royalsocietypublishing.org\/rsbl\/article\/22\/5\/20260108\/481651\/Storm-petrels-trade-movement-speed-for-information\" rel=\"noopener\">paper<\/a>\u00a0published by the Royal Society\u2019s Biology Letters May 13, researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution\u00a0(WHOI) and the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) found that\u00a0Mediterranean storm petrels\u00a0actively sought out\u00a0crosswinds, which carried odors the birds used to navigate toward prey. The birds\u00a0were effectively\u00a0trading the extra energy needed to fly in a crosswind for the information it blows toward them.<\/p>\n<p>These sparrow-sized\u00a0birds\u00a0routinely undertake foraging trips\u00a0hundreds of\u00a0miles\u00a0over the sea, returning to the breeding colony to relieve their partners from incubation duties.\u00a0Until recently, their small size has precluded researchers\u2019 ability to tag them, keeping their journeys a mystery.\u00a0In 2020 and 2021, working on the Italian island Sardinia, the team, led by ISPRA and WHOI, attached lightweight GPS\u00a0sensors\u00a0to the birds, adding just 3.3% of the birds\u2019 weight\u00a0as they set out over the Mediterranean Sea.<\/p>\n<p>This finding could help reveal how changing winds\u00a0might\u00a0impact seabirds\u2019 feeding, breeding, energy levels, and survival,\u00a0adding\u00a0insights about patterns of\u00a0nutrients in the sea\u00a0\u2014 and the forces that create them.<\/p>\n<p><em>~Karen Romano Young<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"mobile-credits blog-sidebar\">\n<div class=\"post-author\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/themes\/nasa\/assets\/images\/solar-system\/nasa-starfield.webp\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"author-details\">\n<p class=\"author-name\" itemprop=\"author\">Karen Romano Young<\/p>\n<p class=\"author-title\">Karen Romano Young<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"June 12, 2026 2:44PM\">June 12, 2026 2:44PM<\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<footer class=\"more-from-footer\">\n<h2 class=\"more-from-header\">More from The Latest in NASA Science News<\/h2>\n<\/footer>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/blogs\/science-news\/2026\/06\/12\/birds-follow-their-noses\/?rand=6382\" target=\"_blank\">Source link <\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You might think birds\u00a0skimming over the ocean\u00a0wouldn\u2019t seek wind unless it was pushing them in the right\u00a0direction,\u00a0but\u00a0NASA-funded\u00a0researchers have learned that storm petrels find\u00a0stiff crosswinds\u00a0worth\u00a0the slowdown,\u00a0in return for the clues and cues the gusts carry. In a\u00a0paper\u00a0published by the Royal Society\u2019s Biology Letters May 13, researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution\u00a0(WHOI) and the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA)&hellip;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":99034,"featured_media":9258,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[2712,2714,2713,2715,2640,2716,1250],"ground_category":[137,313],"class_list":["post-9257","ground_post","type-ground_post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bird","tag-birds","tag-flight","tag-follow","tag-nasafunded","tag-noses","tag-research","ground_category-1-grounds-science","ground_category-1-4-discover-saturn"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assets.science.nasa.gov\/content\/dam\/science\/esd\/esnt\/StormyPetrelCloseup.png\/jcr:content\/renditions\/cq5dam.web.1280.1280.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ground_post\/9257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ground_post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ground_post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ground_post\/9257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9257"},{"taxonomy":"ground_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ground_category?post=9257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}