One of the great pleasures in cruising is observing wildlife, both exotic as in polar bears and whales, and common, like the various types of gulls. Seagulls are amazing flying machines and very adept soaring pilots. Not the most aesthetic of birds at rest, they are exquisite in flight, reminiscent of the high performance gliders we have flown.
Having soared with raptors in our gliders we tend to think of seagulls more as wing flappers, but they know how to use ridge lift and thermals, in the context of their wing design (being more highly loaded then most raptors).
Take the fort walls in Baiona or the breakwater here in Vigo. With the sea breeze in force both offer good orthographic lift, and you will find the gulls effortlessly riding this “wave” back and forth, with barely any movement of their wings. The human records in wave flight are in excess of 3000 kilometers now for distance and over 50,000 feet in altitude.
They also use thermal lift. Sitting at anchor off the beach at Barra when the atmosphere hits what glider pilots call “trigger temperature”, and thermals begin to form, hundreds of gulls will take off, work the local thermal to gain altitude, and then head offshore on a long glide to their fishing grounds. This is the same technique used by glider pilots, and early thermals will often find a “gaggle” of eager pilots. The main difference is the human pilots all circle in the same direction while the gulls tend to be more individualistic.
If you are having a lazy afternoon, and there are gulls about, try watching them with a long camera lens or a pair of binoculars. You are in for a treat.
For a slide show of our favorite Spanish gulls
click here.
Posted by Steve Dashew (July 4, 2010)
This entry was posted
on Sunday, July 4th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Dashew Logs.
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July 10th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Thanks for the trix & pics… much can be gained thro observation of birds in the wild… esp. sea-birds… never a dull moment. DV in The Whitsundays
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