An albatross
| Photo Credit: AFP
Do you know that there are birds that spend almost all their lives flying over the vast seas? Known as pelagic birds, they enjoy the largest habitat — the ocean — that provides plenty of food but little space for breeding. So they nest on islands or rocky cliffs.In the airThe seawater, as well as the fish they eat, is highly saline. So how do the gulls, terns, petrels, albatrosses, puffins circumvent this problem? Salt glands connected to their nostrils help them get rid of the excess salt. Those birds that do not have salt-exuding glands manage to excrete the salt in their urea-rich faeces.Sea birds that spend days together in the air carry out all their functions — feeding and sleeping — on the wing. They sleep with half their brain awake or catch short power naps.
A brown-headed gull
| Photo Credit:
