How Do Birds Sleep During Migration?

Migratory birds, such as the frigate bird, undertake long-distance journeys where sleep becomes a critical challenge. Frigate birds can sleep while flying, a behavior observed through EEG studies, revealing their use of uni-hemispheric slow-wave sleep. This allows one brain hemisphere to rest while the other stays alert, often keeping one eye open to monitor the environment. Despite sleeping during migration, frigate birds spend less than 3% of their time in sleep, preferring to stay awake. They recover lost sleep once they reach land. REM sleep, crucial for all vertebrates, is significantly shorter during flight, lasting only seconds. Different migratory birds have diverse sleep strategies, from brief naps to minimal sleep, making their behavior a fascinating subject for researchers.

#sleep #birds #migration

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[johnzadkovich]

Politicians do this while in Parliament: half their brain sleeps.

[fredsalfa]

I used do swimming training for the State Championships early in the morning like 4 am before school. Sometimes I was so tired I used to have a quick micro nap while swimming just to relieve the tiredness. It seemed to help.

[deedoyle]

Excellent video & worth watching to end.

[dloui]

they usually have this button on their chest called ap-1 and ap-2 ,
when pressed they go automatically follow the pre-flight plan programme .

[MyLifeOfficial]

Super awesome vid! So succinct, and full of information. Great work!

[gooseface]

Yay! Was just wondering about this the other day. 👍

[wvbroqz]

This is awesome and useful content thank you

[inGuy]

Our heart beats and lungs breathe while sleeping so perhaps some aspects of flying are autonomic and separate from the need for REM or being alert... During human sleep our muscles are suppressed so we dont move while dreaming. Perhaps birds do not have or need that suppression, especially since there is less danger flying in the sky than navigating ground terrain without consciousness.

[ashieldgurlhosur]

I m a seaman I saw birds staying on the ship for 10 -15 days while sailing and they eat fish at day keep flying around and sleep on deck at night. And we sailed around 300Nm a day so that's how they napped

[miketrissel]

I thank you so much for this amazing research.
At least to me, this is the final nail in the coffin for any evolutionary process.
This had to have been designed into their brains.
To shut off one side of the brain, and one eye at a time, while still flapping 2 wings and maintaining direction blows my mind. A human can't eyeball a cell phone and drive at the same time, nor even shift a gear shift or change a radio station on a car, without affecting the rest of the body. Very well done my friend. 🧐👌

[professorsogol]

This video makes several assertions about frigate birds that make the accuracy of the whole suspect. 1) The text below the title banner asserts frigate birds are "migratory" and the narration at 0:12 states that male frigate birds fly vast distanced to find "a hospitable breeding ground." Wikipedia says "Genetic testing seems to indicate that the species has fidelity to their site of hatching despite their high mobility." That is to say frigate birds tend to raise their broods near to the place they themselves were reared. 2) The animation of frigate birds shows them flapping their wings to fly. Wikipedia says "Highly adept, they use their forked tails for steering during flight and make strong deep wing-beats, [45] though not suited to flying by sustained flapping." and "[They] soar continuously and only rarely flap their wings." and "frigatebirds are thermal soarers, using thermals to glide"

[lenin]

Funny and educational, great combo?👊🏻

[scellowmcineka]

I once slept driving on the highway for a stretch of about 30km & was horrified waking up dreaming I was driving when I actually doing for real.
I pulled over one side of the highway gasping in shock to take in what had just happened.

Can you please also do a topic of we humans enter this autopilot mode...

[OPGamer-wpsi]

Nice information.. Neatly explained with amazing graphics. Thanks. 👍

[jeffj]

It would be nice to see actual vid or pictures of the birds.

[Themaker-studio]

Hey steve dont forget to turn on auto pilot when flying sleeping.

[worldtraveler]

While being sleep deprived during the crucible (Marines know what that is), I once fell asleep while hiking in formation. And when I woke up, I was still hiking lol. So it is possible

[anupkumarpradhan]

my sister asked me this question some days ago
I said I need to know more about this



uploaded 8 days ago

[Opuscus]

Wait a minute! 200 days of flight? You mean this happens during migration ONE WAY. So let's say when the bird gets to its destination destination and immediately turns back that would be 400 days. Why bother to migrate?
Now, if it is not a migration then why a silly bird would fly for 200 days? And by the way, how do they eat during those 200 long days?

[blengi]

given brain hemispheres control opposite side of body, how does a sleeping hemisphere coordinate with a non sleeping hemisphere to synch body movements