Maybe the bird is more nervous on the beach than flying around on the open water.
But it’s not even that flying takes little effort, it’s that it takes no effort. The bird does not use any of its own potential energy for flight, it extracts it from the wind gradient over the ocean in the course of flying, and turns it into kinetic energy. It would tire too quickly otherwise, and would be unable to make the transpacific journey to breeding grounds.
But it’s not even that flying takes little effort, it’s that it takes no effort. The bird does not use any of its own potential energy for flight, it extracts it from the wind gradient over the ocean in the course of flying, and turns it into kinetic energy. It would tire too quickly otherwise, and would be unable to make the transpacific journey to breeding grounds.