from Hacker News

Tiny songbird can fly the Atlantic, scientists confirm

by ctingom on 4/1/15, 6:34 PM with 14 comments

• by ovis on 4/1/15, 8:58 PM

  This is impressive, but the headlines seem to overstate the journey.

  My first surprise was that they fly from North America to South America, rather than Old World to New World. I wrote that off as being my mistake - Nova Scotia to Venezuela certainly counts as Atlantic.

  But then, it turns out they (quite reasonably) appear to stop in Caribbean islands along the way. To me, this doesn't qualify as "non-stop from New England to South America".

  In fact, the quoted 1700 miles is roughly 25 degrees of latitude, which I don't believe would get to you South America, starting from Nova Scotia.

  Still, further than I've ever flown.

  Edit: not sure why I was downvoted. Did I make a mistake?

• by mark_l_watson on 4/2/15, 12:58 AM

  I have a difficult time believing this. About 25 years ago I was sailing from San Francisco to San Diego in a small sailboat, and as usual we were about 20 miles offshore to avoid being in shipping lanes. We saw a small yellow canary a half mile away flying, then dropping close to the water, struggling for elevation, repeating this process of almost dropping into the ocean. It looked pathetic and close to death.

  The bird saw our boat and landed on it. We gave it water and food, trying not to get close to it. We ended up going towards the shore because we wanted a short stop in Santa Barbara and the bird stayed on our deck until we were very close to shore.

• by snorkel on 4/1/15, 11:06 PM

  Article doesn't mention how many hours of flight ... I'm guessing at least 50?

• by colincycle on 4/1/15, 10:13 PM

  4.2 ounces = 119.067997 grams

• by fit2rule on 4/1/15, 9:18 PM

  Carrying coconuts, or not?