A study analyzing two decades of GPS tracking data on Manx shearwaters has revealed that these seabirds experience a form of jet lag when their internal body clocks become misaligned with local time during rapid eastward flights. The research, conducted by Dr. Patrick Lewin at the University of Oxford and colleagues, examined wild birds returning from foraging trips across the Atlantic to their colonies on the west coast of the UK.
The shearwaters rely on the sun as a compass for navigation, determining their heading by adjusting their position relative to the sun’s location and using their internal clock to track the time of day. When birds flew east across longitudinal lines during their return journeys, their body clocks fell behind local time by approximately an hour, causing navigation errors. The sun compass mechanism, which normally keeps the birds oriented, became unreliable when the internal clock was out of sync with actual local time.
For mature shearwaters, the navigational errors were relatively modest, with course deviations adding only about 3 miles to 600-mile journeys and roughly 5 kilometers to 1,000-kilometer flights. However, first-time foragers lacked the experience and map sense to correct such errors and could end up flying hundreds of miles off course. The birds’ errors persisted even when flying along coastlines where visual landmarks might have provided alternative navigational cues, reinforcing the central role of solar orientation in their navigation system.
Prof Richard Holland of Bangor University, commenting on the findings, characterized the research as significant validation of sun compass reliance in wild animals, confirming what controlled laboratory studies had previously suggested. While Holland noted that the consequences of these navigation errors remain unclear since birds do eventually reach their breeding colonies, he emphasized the importance of understanding how biological rhythms affect animal behavior across different contexts and circumstances.
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