Animals / royal-albatross-long-distance-flight
Facts about Royal Albatross Long-Distance Flight
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A royal albatross's wingspan can reach up to 3.5 meters, making it one of the largest wingspans of any living bird and enabling its epic oceanic journeys.
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Albatrosses, including the royal albatross, can cover over 1,000 kilometers in a single day while foraging across open ocean.
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Royal albatrosses can remain airborne for years at a time, only returning to land to breed at colonies on subantarctic islands.
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During long-distance flights, royal albatrosses use dynamic soaring, a flight technique that exploits wind gradients above ocean waves to fly with minimal energy expenditure.
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The royal albatross can travel tens of thousands of kilometers in a single foraging trip, circumnavigating the Southern Ocean on prevailing winds.