Data from: Flexible flight response to challenging wind conditions in a commuting Antarctic seabird: do you catch the drift? ...

• Main Authors: Tarroux, Arnaud, Weimerskirch, Henri, Wang, Sheng-Hung, Bromwich, David H., Cherel, Yves, Kato, Akiko, Ropert-Coudert, Yan, Varpe, Øystein, Yoccoz, Nigel G., Descamps, Sébastien
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Movebank Data Repository 2016
• Subjects: Thalassoica antarctica; airspeed; animal foraging; animal tracking; Antarctica; Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System; Antarctic petrel; central place foraging; drift; flight height; orientation; flying tactics; Procellariiformes; seabirds; Radarsat Antarctic Mapping Project Digital Elevation Model; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctic Petrel; ice covered areas
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.q206rm6b; https://www.datarepository.movebank.org/handle/10255/move.498

Flight is intrinsically an energetically costly way of moving and birds have developed morphological, physiological and behavioural adaptations to minimize these costs. Central-place foraging seabirds commute regularly between nesting and foraging areas, providing us with opportunities to investigate their behavioural response to environmental conditions that may affect flight, such as wind. Here we tested hypotheses on how wind conditions influence flight behaviour in situations devoid of the confounding effect that, for instance, active foraging behaviour can have on movement patterns. We studied the Antarctic petrel, Thalassoica antarctica, a seabird breeding far inland in Antarctica and commuting through vast ice-covered areas characterized by steady and strong winds as well as a strict absence of foraging opportunities. We combined the three-dimensional location data from 79 GPS tracks with atmospheric wind data over three consecutive breeding seasons (2011-2013) in order to assess individual flight ...