Scientists find nightingales’ optimal flying speed for long distances

By Stephen Beech

Nightingales manage their epic migrations by flying at a "medium" pace, according to a new study.

Researchers have pinpointed the speed that helps the migratory birds maintain "peak efficiency" during their transcontinental journeys.

They found that, at the end of the summer, when thrush nightingales leave Europe and head for southern Africa, they do not fly at full speed but instead maintain an "even" pace.

Migratory birds spend hundreds of hours in the air and up to now, scientists had assumed that the efficiency of converting energy into flight power was constant regardless of the speed.

But, using wind tunnel experiments involving nightingales, researchers in Sweden have shown that wasn't the case.

Pablo Macías Torres, a biology researcher at Lund University