The albatross

Albatrosses are oceanic birds. They live at sea. They are believed to e the sailors’ friends d supposed to bring good luck to mariners. They come to land on islands only because the young ones have to be on land until they can fly. This can be a problem for mom and dad albatrosses, because the food in the ocean may be a long distance from where the nesting island is. O handle this problem, the albatrosses can cover thousands of kilometers during one rip to find food for their babies and themselves. They are indeed hard working athletes. They are among e largest flying birds weighing up to ten kilograms. Albatross parents catch and swallow their prey at the sea and fly back to the nest. The parents then feed their children. Albatrosses have a small clutch size (number of eggs in the nest). They lay only one egg at a time. Ornithologist say that the long feeding trips of albatrosses cause the small clutch size because the parents cannot bring food often enough to satisfy ore than one chick in the nest. Albatrosses eat mostly fish, Fish eggs and squid. They may find and kill their prey at the ocean’s surface, or they many scavenge dead bodies floating on the surface, like he vultures do on land. They travel wide areas of the ocean in search of food. Flying is hard work, and uses a lot of energy.

Further; if the parent has to bring back a big load of food to last itself or its chicks for days or weeks, is not hat extra weight going to make flying even harder? Albatrosses have two tools that they can use: -

a) they have the ability to concentrate the food they catch and store it in their bellies

b) Using `dynamic soaring’ (flying without flapping the wings) they can fly very, very long distances with little effort to find the food and then take it to the nest. Is not that amazing?

Learning from nature- the woodpecker

Human beings have learnt many things from nature. One of man’s teachers is the woodpecker that pecks at every tree. The woodpecker hugs a tree. Its claws help it get a firm grip. The sharp beak strikes at the bark of the tree creating a dent. The bird draws back its neck. One again, it strikes the spot with a hared blow. This goes on. The knocks produce sounds like drum beats. Meanwhile, the little insects and worms resting in the trees get the message that the enemy is round. They shiver with fear and draw back into the heard core of the tree but cannot escape. Now the beak grabs worm, comes again and again till the bird has its belly full. Early man watched he woodpecker. He learnt to drill holes or to chisel shapes after watching the woodpecker at work. He shaped many tools after the sharp long beak of the woodpecker. He saw how the woodpecker worked. It draws its neck back. It brings its beak down on the chosen spot with power; very much like the hammer that drives nails in. we act like the woodpecker when we drill for oil. The drills go after the oil. Very much like the woodpecker. The oil is the worm, now. Like the worm, the oil is in the core of the earth. It lies under layers of rock, sand, mud and clay. The drill goes deeper and deeper. At last it dips into the oil well. The oil thinks it is safe.

Not for long. All this is possible because of the woodpecker and way it taught us to drill sharp things into hard surfaces.