Prof Emily Shepard (Swansea University), Life in fickle airscapes

The aerial environment has only recently been considered a habitat in its own right. One of the defining characteristics of this environment is its variability – the air is always on the move, and air currents tend to be much faster than those found in water. This is important for flying animals, which tend to operate in the first few hundred metres above the ground, and where the aerial habitat is particularly variable. As a result, we would expect many animals to modulate their daily flight paths to take advantage of, or avoid, certain aerial characteristics. This talk will consider how airflows influence the movements of soaring birds, including the airflows that gulls select as they fly through urban spaces. I will then go on to consider how airflows impact avian ecology more widely, from the influence of weather patterns on competition in a guild of vultures, to where birds nest.