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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

These birds fly high when the full Moon hangs in the sky

Moonlit nights lure the northern black swift to altitudes of more than 4,000 metres — much higher than they soar on nights when the Moon is new.
American Black Swift (Cypseloides niger) pair at nest, Montana.

Black swifts on the nest. The northern black swift flies high on moonlit nights — but a total lunar eclipse in 2019 sent them hurrying to lower altitudes. Credit: Donald M. Jones/Nature Picture Library

How high some birds fly at night depends on how brightly the Moon shines1.

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Nature 603, 552 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00738-8

References

  1. Hedenström, A. et al. Curr. Biol. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.03.006 (2022).

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