Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloud Based Mayhem. Giving you an extra little bonus show this week. We're filling it right back in. We had some gaps back earlier this fall, but now I'm just recording shows like crazy and I want to get them out to you. So I've got a great show for you today that's in a totally different realm. Still flying, but it's with Hannah Jane Williams. She's not a pilot, but she studies soaring birds. She's in her postdoctoral research project at the Max Planck Institute in southern Germany. Her back door is the Northern Alps. And she started looking at paragliders going, I wonder if these pilots can answer questions we've been trying to study for years with soaring birds. And they put all kinds of, you'll learn about this in the show, but they put all kinds of trackers and little gizmos.
On the birds that send back all the data and they're trying to figure out how birds make decisions in the skies. And Adrian, who I had on the show, you heard about flying off all the volcanoes in Mexico. So you got to talk to these folks. This research they're doing is fascinating and birds fly a lot better than we do. And I'm sure we can learn something. And I really did. We had a great talk. I think you're going to love it. Before we get to it, a couple of things of housekeeping. The first is the talk I had with Kirstie Cameron. I talked about the Zeno and how it has proven itself to be a pretty safe wing and a good entry level two line glider. And quite a few people reached out to me after that and said, great podcast. But I think that was maybe not the best way to say that.
There have been a lot of accidents on the Zeno. And probably I don't think that has anything to do with the wing. It has proven itself to be a very solid two liner, like I said in the show. And this isn't a knock on that. It's probably just a lot. I think it's one of their best selling wings. A lot of people are on it and we have accidents in this sport. So probably just numbers and statistics are very difficult in our sport because every country models it differently, takes in the information differently and chalks it up differently. And most accidents probably just go unreported. So but several people did reach out and say, man, I've seen a lot of accidents on the Zeno. I don't know about that. And again, I don't think that's a knock on the wing, but we probably should have just been more.
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Okay. Let's get into the show with Hannah Jane Williams. I really enjoyed this and it's just fun to talk about different aspects of our sport in this time in a completely different way. So we all have, of passionate love of birds. We're trying to be birds ourselves and Hannah studies birds. So enjoy this show. Cheers.
And I think we've been trying to do this for, I don't know, over a year, but I appreciate Adrian giving me the shout out and introducing me to you and your group. And thanks for sticking with me through all this crazy.
Lifestyle stuff that we've both been having and I appreciate you being on the mayhem. That's all right. Thank
you. I'm glad to be here. Tell me
about, yeah, I mean your project. Let's just, let's get into it. Well, tell me about your project because I don't often have non-pilots on the show, but this is a, you're definitely somebody I want to talk to. And I think the audience is going to really enjoy this.
So I, I'm a movement ecologist. That's normally looking at the soaring flight of birds. And recently started thinking about other things that are in the air and that's gone over to paragliders. And my project right now is I'm interested in how paragliders may be looking at each other to find the air and think about how birds might be doing the same thing if they're watching each other to find air flows. And I'm interested in how you guys managed to find the air, but specifically what you're looking at when you're flying.
Fascinating. Cause you know, the air is famously quite invisible. Yeah. So it's, it's kind of the magic of, of what we do is, is trying to see what's not often really clear. So, and do you study any particular types, all types of soaring birds, or is there a kind of a one species focus?
It's gone through different species, different places. I did my PhD and that was on different vulture species in South Africa and Europe. And then you move through and I did a postdoc that was on the Andean condor in Swansea University with Emily Shepherd carrying on with some research of hers. And then now I've moved to Germany and looking at different, the same species, but we also work on storks here as well. And every, all of them are soaring birds. And I'm interested in how they're going to be able to do that. And I'm interested in how they're going to be able to do that. And I'm interested in how they're going to be able to do that. They're still using the air, but they have different morphometrics that change how they could be using the air. The rules are the same. So I can jump between species and now jump to people.
So, I mean, take me through how a study works. Well, firstly, where are you right now? And we're looking at this office building. I saw you when you were walking around earlier. It's, it's big. Is this a, is this a, or is everybody there working on what you're doing or is everybody working on different animals and different projects? So
I'm at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour in the south of Germany on Lake Constance. And here we have, it's, it used to be an institute for ornithology that was specifically interested in birds and migration really, but it's grown. And now I'm sharing a building with a load of primatologists that are interested in how different groups of primates operate. There's people working on storks. There's people working on birds. There's people working on sharks around me on eagles. And then we have a group that's interested in how the dynamics of a group work in people or fish. So there's some collective behaviour stuff and some movement stuff. Mine kind of does a little bit of both of those things.
Interested in how you move together.
How did you get interested in birds?
That's, well,
I wish I had a beautiful answer for you, but you go down the path and you end up where you end up because you're
not a bird. You're not a bird. You're not a bird. You're not a bird.
You just enjoy each step along the way. So I started with studying killer whales and humpback whales in Scotland and was looking at how they operate as a group. And then went and did some work with some gametes and seabirds. And it just took me further down this route. All of those things I've had in common that we use technology to see how an animal moves without having to observe it. And I think that's a really good answer. I think it's a really good answer. I think it's a really good answer. I think it's a really good answer. I think it's a really good answer. I think Both the water and the air lend themselves to those for different reasons. And so whales and birds is kind of, it's a good place to be if you're interested in movement and have this technology. You
mentioned you worked on vultures down in South Africa. I had this real privilege of being able to go through a kind of a rescue centre when we were doing a project in Malawi a few years ago in South Africa. And I learned a lot about vultures and just how they work. And I think it's a really
it's a really good question.
I mean it's it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it So the vulture problem being that there's a lot of poisoning events. And as soon as one vulture lands a poisoned carcass, then hundreds of them land and they're all dead, really, and affected by it. And when I was in South Africa, there was one event like that. And it just it wipes out a group, a local group. And so that is depressing. Yeah. But recently been moving into other areas of research that it's exciting.
So that gets forgotten about a little bit and you have to bring yourself back to the general picture. Just
because I'm so clueless on how these things, how these kind of studies get funded is the Max Planck, is that all grants? Is it government? How does it, do you apply and then you get kind of free reign to go with it for a bunch of years?
Yeah, that's exactly that. So every three years, every five years, you would apply for another big general project. That will have some link to what you did previously. And then you would get funding for research, for salaries, for students to join that. And that's how you end up going down the path, because it's a balance of the money available and what's your drive. So together, the two things influence where you end
up. How do you study birds? How do you gather the data on, I'm assuming, lift and drag? And all the things that affect soaring. How do you do it?
So I use biologgers. Biologgers are like your phone and they have different sensors in them and you attach them. It'd be awesome if your people could see, but I have loads, I have stuff around me. They're like a little box that's full of technology inside of different sensors. It looks
like a Vario.
Well, this is for a paraglider. For those of you
who are listening. Yeah, I was going to say that it looks just like a little Vario. It
doesn't do the beeping quite as much, but it's usually collecting different types of movement data and you attach it to your animal, let it fly off. And then either different schedules, different recording schedules, you might collect it a week later, two weeks or a couple of years later, or even it's on the animal for a lifetime. But they all have very different designs. And obviously we don't want to tag anything. We want to do anything with something heavy for a long period of time. So you balance what you're asking of a tag and the questions that you want to answer. Yeah. So this is a tag that I would actually put on a paraglider, but the technology is actually exactly the same as what I would put on a condor.
Are you able to kind of cross reference? Okay. You put it on a condor in a, in a place that condors fly and put it on a paraglider in a place that paragliders fly. I would think a hang glider. Something might be more, you know, a little more matching and ability in terms of speed and stuff, but they, are you able to go, wow, this pair of letters sucks compared to that condor in terms of finding lines and, and just using currents of air.
It's interesting. I haven't, so I've just started working with a group of paragliders. You've actually had one of them on your show, Malin Lobb, and I haven't yet looked at their data. But we're, we're in a collaboration where he's helping me, the team's helping me figure out how birds could be moving together. But in return, I want to give him some stuff back that could help them figure out how to fly better. Or if there's some. Yeah. We shall share that with me. Let's see where I get. I'll take commissions, take different orders. Yeah.
Yeah. I
mean, I can't really tell you how to fly better, but I can say, I can give you averages in the same way that we compare. We look at. Flight performance in birds. And maybe that could influence your decisions in flight, but also your decisions of how you operate together. I hope there's some feedback between the two that would help me understand birds and help paragliders understand their flights as well.
In your research, what's the biggest driver of where a bird goes? Is it their own unique feel of the sky? Or is it how they're operating in a group? Or
is it their own unique dynamic?
Can you tell stuff like that? We
don't know. The thing that we're most interested in is predicting where animals go. And to do that, we have to understand the decisions at each point of movement. If you decide to turn left or right, if you decide to fly for a great distance in one direction, and where you're going, why you're moving. There's a lot of unanswered questions. So space use is a big topic. Within animal ecology and movement decisions. Now, obviously, every day, they're going to be moving between the rest sites and their foraging sites. So food is a big driver of movement. But then on a longer term, it might be migration and that you're moving from one hemisphere to another, probably for food and for safety or for warmth.
So there's these different drivers at different scales. And trying to find out what's happening at each decision point is what we're interested in.
Yeah, tough to get inside the mind of a bird. Yeah. What bird have you studied has the longest migration pattern? And is that therefore the hardest one to study because they're not around as much?
So the longest migrations are often of shorebirds that are going from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere. Right. Right. Right. So you also get round trip migrations with less of a migration, but long distance trips where you're circumnavigating the Antarctic for an albatross, for example. So they're long distances. It doesn't make them harder to study because these tags should always follow them and work over that time. But what it does mean is that you have to have batteries that are going to last a long time, fill that whole migration period. So you probably look for simpler data if you are tagging an animal for a long time.
So the whole package is smaller and the story is a bit simpler.
Is this the tag you put on that little device you just showed me? Obviously that's for the pair letter, but the tags you use for the birds. Is this something, do you need to retrieve it at some point to be able to get the data or can it send it back as it's going? Is it a capsule for an astronaut capsule or? What am I trying to say? You know, they're getting the feedback all the time as it's going through space. Are you doing the same thing or you got to get it back?
They have a bit of both. And again, it all depends on your animal and the question that you're interested in. So with the condors, Swansea University, they build their own tags that you need called daily diaries. And that's what they're doing. They're making a record of daily movements and daily patterns. And those tags you have to retrieve. So. They. They devised some really awesome ways of getting tags back from animals. The condors have automatic release systems and awesome people out in the Andes that go and find those tags once they've dropped off an animal. They have this automatic release. But then. Whoa. The things you manage to get them to send the data back to you via mobile phone networks or satellites.
And usually that's simpler data. Because of the amount of power that's required to send data. So if you're interested in very fine scale movements, you have to collect the tag. And the daily diaries are recording that like 40 times a second. You want to know the physics of movement. Whereas if you want to know a migration route and get GPS tracks through going from the northern to the southern hemisphere, then you could send the data back to you. But get simpler data back.
What is your loss or destruction rate? Imagine not many. If you send 10 out, how many do you get back?
So with the condors, there was a learning curve on how you got them back. And so they dropped off. How do you then find them once they have dropped off? And every tag back is a win completely. And hard one. There was quite a small percentage given the effort involved. It's going to find a tag. And then with other animals that return to a nest site, for example, a nest site faithful, the percentage of the likelihood of getting your tag back is very high. But that's another thing that we factor into how long you want it to be on the animal. If when I was working with whales, for example, we'd have a tag on for a few hours to try and get basic, not basic, complex movements.
And then you'd have to find a tag. And it would be almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost almost going to do how predictable is its movement to be able to get the tag back if we need to retrieve it do
you have a favorite bird can i ask that
you can but
no i
don't say
you like them all but do i
find it hard because there's um it's i'm very interested in how birds move and their ecology and so every every bird has a different strategy to deal with that so it they're all equally interesting from my point of view i have some that i have like memories and connections with that put them higher up that list but my drive is the biological question so the favorite bird kind of disappears whereas you go you go walking with an ornithologist and they're like they've got a list and they need all that all of those birds on that list and yeah i haven't quite got to that point yet i
would imagine to be a successful study you have to be quite a bit of a research student and you have to be quite a bit of a research student you're you're you're trying to be as low profile with the birds as possible right you're trying to have as little interaction i would imagine as possible but do you get to know these birds a bit do you get to spend any kind of you
get to know them afterwards and mostly
just tagging and letting them go yeah exactly
you get to know them afterwards so once the data's come back you start to feel like you've got a connection through the bird because of the data yeah that's the unfortunate part of it yeah i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point thing it's what we have to do you don't want to be invasive that's the the thing we're trying to avoid um you don't want to disturb them so afterwards you get more of a i get a connection with the data anyway and i think most of us do especially if that's long-term data and you can follow it over years and um you start you have a personality associated with that data i have to be careful of that word in science personality is a controversial word sure
sure but
um yeah you do you get an attachment i
spent a long time at sea and so i have this incredible affinity for the albatross is watching them at sea and i you know i didn't spend a ton of time in the southern ocean but enough to that's where you usually see them molly hawks more around southern new zealand and stuff but just unbelievably impressive you know they can go from what i understand uh you know i don't know if i've ever been to a lake or a lake and i've never been to a lake it's it it it it it it it it it it it it it
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it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it ecologists that are using the same devices, biologgers on albatross and looking at their movements and how often they flap and where and how they move and the energetics of that. Yeah, there's a few different groups working on albatross, different species. Very similar to the way that we think about the soaring, thermal soaring. Yes, it's a different type of soaring that an albatross is using, but there's still the same trade-offs that they have in their flight and their strategies for movement. So there's comparisons that we can make between land and seabirds.
Something I would imagine most, especially predators, I would think, engage in is play. And when we fly, we see birds most definitely playing. They're not just hunting or, I mean, it certainly seems like it in any way, that some seem a lot more fixated on hunting, but others just, they're just doing loops and cruising. And I guess maybe they're catching bugs too, but they certainly seem like they're having a really good time. Have you been able to document that? Is that something you see regularly in birds?
I would go towards the side of no, because we're trying to, it makes sense that every day we're trying to do something that we're not doing. And I think that's a really good decision an animal makes should balance different trade-offs. Now play could be interesting if that helps you practice flight. If it's something like that, then it has a benefit. It shouldn't be wasteful of energy, especially if you're a soaring bird. And then all of a sudden you're kind of screwed and you've got no energy reserves left in or potential energy, we say. So you're playing so much that you lose height and now, you're stuck. Yeah. There should be a trade-off between a benefit and the cost, but I'm interested in that. What do you think is play?
Do you play as a paraglider in that, can you afford to mess around?
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's the whole acro side of flying both in hang gliders and paragliders. And that would definitely be a trade-off. Yeah. Definitely be defined as play because what we're usually concerned about is our glide and acro just destroys it. You go down very, very fast. So you're not worried about your glide anymore and you're just having fun. But certainly if you're trying to go somewhere, then playing is destroying that. The trade-off is steep. But if you're just the mountain right behind my house most... 99 times out of a hundred, when I fly off that, I'm just flying to go play, just to have fun.
And that could be doing maneuvers that are in opposition of staying in the sky. So when I watch falcons and not as much with eagles, they usually seem pretty intent. They're a more serious bird. But when I watch falcons and they... The smaller kind of predators, they sure seem to spend a lot of time horsing around. And again, we can't see the tiny bugs. We see them all the time when they're clearly hunting bugs, because bugs get caught up in a thermal and that's often a real good marker.
And when you start seeing all the little starlings and smaller birds gathering them up, but they're kind of like you see manta rays, they're not really hunting them. They're just kind of like you see a manta ray, but they're just kind of like you see a manta ray. I think that's what manta rays do when they get in really thick plankton. Instead of just flying along like they normally do, they start barrel rolling, because it's just a more efficient way to feed. So maybe that's what the birds are doing. They're just barrel rolling through the birds.
You could
say that
it's feeding. It could be practice. It could be testing the air. It could be... There's different pressures that are relaxed at a certain time, but... Play is an interesting word. It's, again, a controversial word, I would say, because there should be a reason for it. It's interesting that you say when you're messing around compared to when you're in the race. And this is why I'm interested in paraglider racing. I could look at comparing different aeronautical relationships between birds and paragliders. But if I want to look at the decisions, then your behavior is
going to be different. So I think that's a good way to
look at it. Yeah. And so the race of a paraglider is what's most interesting to me, because then you have a goal, which is what we predict animals have for every day. Feeding is their goal. So the strategies should be similar then to make some comparisons.
But when you see up here in the Northwest, very much like where you're from in the UK, the shorebirds that are soaring, just your standard seagull, certainly they're not feeding or doing anything except just enjoying it, aren't they? They just seem like they're just cruising, just back and forth and up and down and yelling at one another.
Yeah, but what's the overall goal of that movement? There could be something at a larger scale that we can't see, which is why biologuing, I like it so much, because you can relate a specific moment in time to an overall movement path at a scale we cannot follow them. Yeah. So you're seeing one little part of their day when you're on the ground, seaside watching them. And who knows what information they could be gaining whilst they're playing or what you want to define it as.
Interesting. I still think they're playing.
So what have you learned? I mean, maybe it's still too nascent. I don't know, but I know you've been at this project, you were saying earlier, at least eight years, but what are we missing as pilots? What do birds, because that's always the goal is to, and we can sometimes, I don't know how hard they're trying, but we can outclimb birds. You get in the same thermal and that's always the goal, but they will never, our best pilot, pretty unarguably is a guy named Chrigel Maurer. And you've probably heard of him. He's called the Eagle and he's one. He's one of the best pilots. He's been in the air for seven ex-Alps in a row. And they call him the Eagle because he's so good at flying and picking lines.
But anyway, my question is, what do they know that we don't?
I don't know. That's the question for us too. It's why are they so good at it? I mean, evolution has taken them down that route of needing to be good at it. If this is a strategy they're going to exploit, then they should optimize it. And I think that's a really good question. Yeah. I think that's a really good question. And I think that's a really good question. Especially for such a heavy bird where if you get it wrong, it's incredibly costly. So evolution has got something to act on the pressure. How they find these thermals or updrafts, we don't know. And the perception of a bird of different air, we still don't know either. And so we're trying to get there to understand how they're able to do it so well. And we're starting to get there with this technology.
I mean, they
don't have a Vario in their brain?
Well, they might. So they should be able to sense the air once they're in it, for sure. And whether that's something to do with angles or pressure changes, we're still exploring that. But then how they see their world or what is it they're actually looking for as cues of different air flows, we're really interested in that. And they could be static cues. It could be other thermals that are like what I'm interested in. If there's another bird ahead moving in a certain way, is there some way of understanding what the air is from that movement? And I was listening to one of your other podcasts, and you use the word instinct to be able to thermal and find thermals or do it really well.
And that's what we're trying to get at. How is it so seemingly automatic to fly so well? Yeah. They
seem to just go to the right place. They seem to have just much more, their feelers are much more sensitive than ours are. Part of that may just be that we start relying more and more as we get better and better on our instruments. And that sounds opposite how it should be, but typically you learn you don't have a Vario. You're just worried about launching and getting to the ground safely. And then as you start thermaling, you start using instruments and Varios. And we're always trying to get the right place. And I think that's a really good point. Yeah. I've always been told and talked about on the show a lot. You should fly a lot without one to just develop that natural instinct and watch the horizon and try to feel the better part of the core of a thermal than just hearing the different tone in the Vario.
But birds just have all that. It's just ingrained or certain. It seems like it is.
It's the evolution of fencing movement. I mean, we do it in our movements, but we're used to walking on the ground. And we can sense what we're interacting with in that environment, the floor or the substrate, if you're walking on sand or on something hard. But the birds should be doing the same. That's their environment. And if we're going into it with technology, we need to learn from them how to do it. And that's what all of your senses are providing you with, the same information that they have evolved to sense.
Paragliding is really risky because we're human and we're dumb and we make mistakes. Mistakes and mistakes in aviation are pretty costly. The ground is hard. You said something there. I was kind of surprised to hear that if a bird makes a mistake, especially if they're a big bird, it could be quite costly. Do they make mistakes? I've never seen a bird make a mistake. Do they crash or do they get in badly or do they hit the deck?
Yes, there are definitely different mistakes. With the condors in Argentina, there's a group there that have been working. I was working with them by Sergio Lambertucci. And they've been looking at different anecdotes as well of what's happened. And you'll often get birds walking around. And it's as if they've landed and now they've lost the lift and they've got to go find it. And even anecdotes of condors walking up mountains to go and find lift. They have amazing legs. And yeah, if you can't take off from the ground where you ended up landing, then you've got to get yourself out. Get out of that situation to go find lift. And you see it in different other ways. If you make a mistake by landing at a carcass that's full of other birds and it's very competitive,
then you've made a costly decision. And then also if you make a mistake and you miss a thermal or you arrive at a place where there's no longer a thermal for some, if it's an intermittent, you're between the thermal bubbles. Then you're going to have to. Pay the cost of flapping and expensive flights to get you to stay airborne and avoid that landing. Whereas for you guys, for the paraglider, you have to land and then some, some guy's going to come and pick you up. As I learned this summer that there's a lot of picking up.
Or if you're in the race, you just keep walking. Yeah.
Every time I bomb out, it just means I have to walk. So that's what a
condor could be doing. But it's anecdotal. Because we can't watch them all the time. Maybe with these tags, we can try and understand when there's mistakes made. But so far, we're still trying to understand what's the difference between right and wrong or a decision that was made purposefully or something that was unavoidable. There's a long way to go yet to understand that.
Which bird, in your opinion, is kind of the king of flight? Who does it? Which bird does it most efficiently?
That's impossible to answer. It's impossible. It's impossible because they all are very different. They've all got different strategies. So they all have evolved to be the best at their strategy. So a condor is the heaviest soaring bird. So it's incredibly efficient at its type of movement, but then it needs to fly in the Andes and it's restricted. It can't go fly anywhere because the air to support them isn't everywhere. So then maybe a... All-rounder bird is a bit better that could do both thermaling and flapping like a stalk. But then it's evolved a different way of life and can migrate.
So everything's awesome. They have all evolved to be good at what they do. Yeah. It's a hard question.
Yeah. I had an experience with an eagle in Alaska. I did this Alaska traverse a few years back. I was struggling to figure out how to get across. I was trying to figure out how to get across a glacier in front of me. It was really, really late in the day. And I knew I didn't have the height to make it across the glacier. And you don't really want to land on a glacier.
The crevasses, it was getting... It was also pretty late. So I would have landed and had to walk across it in the dark, which wouldn't have been good. And so I was just trying to... I was kind of struggling with, should I go or not? Should I go or not? Should I try it or not? It was a long glide and there wasn't going to be any thermals over the glacier. And this eagle came out of a tree and took me across. It was like he'd read my mind and he knew where I needed to go. And he just came out and got right on my wingtip and kind of looked over at me. And then he started flying towards the glacier. And I thought, well, hell, why not? I'll give it a try. And he did. He brought me across the glacier. As soon as I got across the other side, he took off. He just banked left and went somewhere else. So in my mind, he's the best.
Okay. But then are you watching them often? You must be watching them all the time and thinking about it. Are they going to show you the way? They're our
greatest marker. They really are. I mean, birds are really what you're trying to observe. And there are places in the world where there's tons and they're incredibly helpful. And there's places where you don't get much bird help. It just really depends. Even around here, we have lots of birds, but it depends on the day. It's a funny thing. And then, of course, it depends on how high you are. Here, we're very often way up over 15,000. And, you know, you don't see a ton of birds out there, but you do. They're out there. But yes, I mean, if they're turning, like you said, I think birds try to fly pretty efficiently. So if they're turning, that's telling us that that's a thermal worth going to. Yeah. You know, we very rarely don't go to a climb that a bird is in.
I mean, again, most of the time it's invisible unless you've got smoke or something else that's helping you out. Or a big defined cloud that's... Clearly growing and marking a thermal that, you know, the air is invisible and they see it better than we do, I'm sure.
It's interesting, though, that you wouldn't say no to a thermal if there's a bird in it.
If there's a bird in it, does that mean that it's big enough? It's still strong enough for you to, as a massive paraglider, to use it?
Almost always. I mean, there are exceptions to that. You know, they're clearly... You know, they're so much lighter and they're so much more efficient that, you know, they can suck you to a thermal that is working for them, you know, at a very low rate for them, too. But it wouldn't be enough for us. But most of the time, they don't fool with those either. You know, they're messing around with the better thermals as well. And they won't use that unless they really need to, I guess. I can't say that for sure. But you... Usually, it's very rare to go to a climb that a bird is in that's not useful to us. It definitely happens. You know, often we're just too late. You know, we'll see them climbing.
By the time we get there, that thermal's either, we call it pull the rope on you or pull the ladder up on you. It's above your head. You've missed it. Or it's just dying. You know, the thermals really cycle with the day. So, it's... You can miss it. But most of the time, a bird's a pretty good bet.
So much you've said there that I'm interested in. I could turn this interview around and start asking you questions. It's a conversation. We're having a conversation. I want to know, like, say if you see another paraglider, then will you always follow it? Because for me, it's a prediction. It would be you only follow those that are in stonking thermals. Great observation. And more experienced than you or better at that location. No. The location well or something.
Great observation. So, the answer is no. Definitely, if you see another paraglider, that's not automatic that you're going to them. I'm sorry. Another paraglider that's turning. That's when the horizon really matters. So, if you're in a two-meter climb, for example, and someone in another part of the sky is in a four-meter climb, that's pretty obvious that they're in a better climb. And you should... You should leave unless you can't... If there's any risk of you leaving your climb and not making it to that climb, you know, in other words, you're not very high, or that thermal's dying and you know that it is, which is harder to tell, but then you wouldn't leave. But most of the time, you know, we're taught observation is everything in our sport.
And if someone's in a better climb, you need to go to them. But if I'm in a climb and then somebody else is in a climb and I can't tell, you know, if it... If it looks the same, then no, I'm going to stay where I am because my climb might get better. But if it's obvious they're in a better climb, I'm going. So, you're exactly right. Birds are the same. Again, I wouldn't leave. If I'm in a really good climb, especially over the average of the day, you know, there's... You start to kind of map the day with, you know, early on, the climbs aren't very strong. Later in the day, the climbs aren't very strong. If it's in the middle of the day and climbs are really strong, you know, historically for the last hour, say, for example, you know, you're going to be in a really good climb. If, you know, you've been in three, four meter climbs, then I'm not going to waste time climbing in a two. And so, you wouldn't move if I'm in a stonking climb and there's a bird over there and I can't tell if he's out climbing me or not, then I'm going to stick where I am.
You're saying exactly what I want to hear. Most of the time, they
don't... What's that? You're
saying exactly what I want to hear. Because this is the... It makes so much sense, but trying to say that that's happening for a bird too, that's really difficult to grasp. Just how much they should be paying attention to others and whether they should say yes to every other thermal or balance it with what they're doing themselves and make informed decisions. And that's what I'm trying to look for.
It's interesting. The more I think about it too, you know, it was very surprising to me early on when I started realizing that you can actually out climb birds. And I've always assumed that's just because they're not trying very hard. You know? It does... You know, they're clearly better climbers. And so, you know, I often wonder if that's just really on that scale of what you're talking about, the cost. You know, maybe they don't need the height and they're just really more observing and looking around. Because there's... I've often also been in really strong climbs that they've brought me to, but they leave. And it's still a very good part of the climb. I end up gaining another 2,000 or 3,000 feet or something in that same climb and they just keep going. There's
different theories for that. But
maybe they got scared of me. Maybe they don't like being in a... They
don't like the climb
with me either. I'm often big. So, you know, who knows? But
then it depends if there's another thermal coming up. If there's an expectation that you've got enough height to reach the next thermal, then go for it with your speed. Go get some distance and do that quickly rather than waste time in a thermal if you don't need that height to keep traveling. Yeah. Again, different strategies.
Totally. And that's super important for us when we're trying to cover distance is maximizing all of that. And you don't want to waste time climbing in something that's... If it's been a four and it drops to two, you have to leave immediately. There's no reason to keep climbing. You're just wasting time. Every time we turn, as Stephen Smoker said, a very famous pilot in our community and Chrigel talks about all the time, every time we turn or half the time, we're going the wrong way. So, yeah. You want to turn as little as you possibly can. And I imagine birds are the same. The penalty points seem, you know, again, not always, but historically, the percentages of winning following a bird are really high.
Typically, you know, their lines are almost always better. In other words, between thermals, from one thermal to the next. Or just when there aren't even thermals, when they're just cruising through the sky. It's a pretty... It's
a pretty safe
bet to follow their line and take their line. They just seem much more sensitive to a boatier, liftier line than we can ever feel. So... A
lot of practice as well. Not only have they got the senses and different cues that they can use, they could have... That could be their territory. For an eagle, for example, they have a territory and they could be flying that same route every day or every so often that means that they've got good practice and they should have an expectation of where that next thermal is.
Fascinating. So back to your original purpose of the study, you're looking for... You're trying to decipher what they see and using other birds to impact their decisions, correct? Have I worded that correctly? Yeah. Yeah. Have you learned anything specifically from that in terms of how other birds... Work around one another that could be useful for us or vice versa? Have you learned anything from paragliding that goes the other way?
So this is the very start of this project. And as we were talking about funding as well, we're still halfway through that process. So hopefully the next few years we'll go really into this project with how groups move to find thermals. But we have... There are some things out there already about information that you can gain by watching another... The birds. Information that birds can gain from each other. So we did some stuff on risk taking that if you have another bird ahead of you, you can take more risks in the glide and increase your flight speed. So if you're increasing your airspeed, then you're going to hit the ground quicker. So you have to guarantee that there's a thermal coming up and that's what information is doing.
Whereas if you don't know and you're completely unsure of where that next thermal is, then you should conserve. You should conserve your height and fly slowly and cautiously. And that we've shown that. Now we're onto something.
And you've seen that in birds? You've seen that that's how they operate?
Part of my PhD was on risk flight when you've got a bird ahead of you. And that could say that you should fly together. And there's the other side of that with some of my colleagues here at Max Planck that we're doing work with storks. This says if you want to keep together as a group because you want to maintain that information, you need to keep up with the group and the one that's at the front has to keep up with the one that's at the back. So they might have to fly more, they might have to flap more, sorry, to keep up, which is costly, but then otherwise you lose your information. So you have to keep up with the group and it has different trade-offs. So we're getting there. We're starting to see different aspects of moving in a group, how that's a benefit.
But the reason I want paragliders to understand what you actually need to do, looking at, which we can't do with a bird.
But I'm still, every single word you just said is competition paragliding. I mean, that's it in a nutshell. That's, that's exactly everything we're thinking about is exactly what you just said. You know, in a typical, you know, free flight race, paragliding or hang gliding, there's 130 pilots and they're called race to goal. You know, so this is where you get driven up the mountain and you fly a course in the sky and everybody's trying to race it as fast as they possibly can. But, you know, it's very risky to go out on your own and get out ahead and not have the information. So it's this constant juggle of, of using everybody else. We call it pimping. You're using all the data from all the other pilots and still trying to win the race.
So when do you break, you know, when do you, when do you take some risk? When do you hold back? When do you try to stay on? When do you go out in front? So the, I mean, this is exactly what we do. Fascinating.
It's the same thing. I never even thought that birds would do that. Well, they have a race every day to get to the food quicker because they, they all land usually at one big carcass and they're using information both to find thermals and to find the food. Most of these soaring birds are scavenging. They're not hunting. Eagles are still using soaring and hunting, but they can flap as well. So there's this, uh, again, another trade off that means you really need to stay together with the group if you're reliant on thermals and the food is also something that is sparse. So yeah, they have to keep together in their race every day is to get to that carcass first. But again, a balance, you don't want to go it alone because then you could, you could risk falling out of the air before you get to the food.
Yeah.
Yeah. Is your world in, in terms of the studying birds? Is it very tight knit or are there Max Planck Institute type places all over the world? You mentioned the condors in South America and the vultures in South Africa. Do you all know each other? You all get to spend time on zoom and compare notes. And how does that all work?
I guess our kind of meets are the conferences that with you, you've got your races, um, and different, and you would go, I guess, collaborate or network and maybe fly with somebody else that you want to learn from or something. We're doing exactly the same and we'll meet each other at conferences, present what we've got. And also the technology brings us together a lot of the time that we are trying to make advances in how we capture animal movement. So even if you work on a completely different animal and you're not working with birds, you're working with whales or with them, the primates here, you come together when you want to share that technology. So it's really a great opportunity to look at the question you're interested in. So yeah, the people in Argentina, for example, they're looking at different parts of the ecosystem from condors to mountain lions.
They're, they have different aspects that they're interested in. And then we come together to collaborate on the specifics that we, we share an interest in.
You have the coolest job. I'm very impressed. It's just so, it seems so, it's so great to be able to kind of follow your passion and find this pretty unique little niche. And I could see on your face how excited you are about it. It's what a fascinating project. Thanks for sharing it with, with me and the listeners and gosh, good luck. I reach out if I can ever help. I'd love to be involved in this somehow. I'm the opposite of a scientist, but thank God for science. Well, I need paragliders now.
I'm very interested in the races. So I hope next year I'll be working with them. Some of the British team, hopefully through Malin. And then I hope to keep looking at different teams through these, these races. Yeah. See how you all move together. My hope is to tag all of you at once. So when you're in the race, you all fly out and all of you are like my, like birds. There's something that's very difficult with birds is to be able to tag them all. You can't, but if you can tag all of the paragliders in a race, you know exactly who's looking at you. So I'll come find you.
Yeah, do please do Hannah. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for your time and good luck. And thanks for sharing this knowledge. We'll, we'll, we'll tap back in, in a couple of years and find out what you've learned.
Yeah, that'd be awesome. Thanks.
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