https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/07/17/the-darwinian-chick/ Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:43:52 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/07/17/the-darwinian-chick/#comment-493848 Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:43:52 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=12827#comment-493848 I remember seeing this special on some birds on an uninhabited island of Japan – they’re sea birds that spend almost their entire lives on the water – they are slowly losing their ability to fly. The interesting thing was they would only nest on this one island, the island had high ragged cliffs and come nesting time it was real work for these birds to get off the water and gain enough altitude to get to the nesting grounds. Even more astonishing were the chicks – as soon as they had fletched they would “fly” down to the water – “fly” as in tumble out of the nest and fall to the sea, several hundred feet in most cases, bouncing off the cliff on the way down often – but still survive and float, right side up, swimming around until their parents find them. Bloody amazing sight.

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