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Drone footage of fledging penguins jumping off cliff

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Re: Drone footage of fledging penguins jumping off cliff

#71

Post by dredmorbius »

christophilus wrote: post #67
RichardCA wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are capable of fast swimming, enough to gain momentum so they can pop back up onto land or an ice floe. https://youtu.be/_OHDYS8qTzQ?t=935s

Yeah, but that cliff was around 40ft, according to the narrator. They aren’t swimming fast enough to hop back up that.

Clearly, they beach elsewhere.

Penguins migrate 100s to 1,000s of km, and can swim great distances. They need not beach near their entry point, and are in the water to feed.

That said, where these penguin fledglings beach would be interesting to see.

https://animalatlantes.com/how-do-penguins-migrate/>

Re: Drone footage of fledging penguins jumping off cliff

#73

Post by Someone »

the__alchemist wrote: post #12
jajko wrote: post #5

Its interesting how unskilled nature can be and still get away with it (here I guess to the thick fur/skin/fat below). If humans would jump from such height so badly, many injuries and possibly few deaths would be happening. I've done my fair of jumps in Swiss swimming pools / beaches where 10m jumping board is standard equipment, and even slightly incorrect landing can be quite brutal on the body. Falling ie on the…

It's mainly due to the square/cube law. Small things, including animals, can fall from great heights with little damage.

Or, as Haldane wrote in “On being the right size” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Being_the_Right_Size:

“You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes. For the resistance presented to movement by the air is proportional to the surface of the moving object. Divide an animal’s length, breadth, and height each by ten; its weight is reduced to a thousandth, but its surface only to a hundredth. So the resistance to falling in the case of the small animal is relatively ten times greater than the driving force”

Re: Drone footage of fledging penguins jumping off cliff

#74

Post by Retric »

Someone wrote: post #73
the__alchemist wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mainly due to the square/cube law. Small things, including animals, can fall from great heights with little damage.

Or, as Haldane wrote in “On being the right size” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Being_the_Right_Size : “You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes. For the resistance presented to movement by the air is proportional to the surface of the mov…

That’s half the equation and explains why speeds are lower.

There’s another square cube relationship around the volume of an object vs the impact area.

Re: Drone footage of fledging penguins jumping off cliff

#75

Post by bewaretheirs »

jncfhnb wrote: post #29

Very odd footage imo. * most of the birds are falling in because they’re pushed, not because they’re jumping * most of the birds are belly flopping hard rather than diving in with any sort of graceful entry * most birds don’t appear to ever jump. I refuse to believe the camera wouldn’t have shown the whole population in the water if they had

Years ago I heard a possibly apocryphal story -- that's at least halfway consistent with what's seen in this video -- about how a mass of penguins decide if they're in a safe place to go for a swim:

They gather near the edge of the ice and jostle each other until one bird falls in. Then they watch to see if it gets eaten by a predator. If not, the rest of them dive in and go for a swim...

Re: Drone footage of fledging penguins jumping off cliff

#76

Post by Larrikin »

jncfhnb wrote: post #29

Very odd footage imo. * most of the birds are falling in because they’re pushed, not because they’re jumping * most of the birds are belly flopping hard rather than diving in with any sort of graceful entry * most birds don’t appear to ever jump. I refuse to believe the camera wouldn’t have shown the whole population in the water if they had

I don't think there is any reason to think a belly flop would have the same effect on a penguin as it would on a human.

Re: Drone footage of fledging penguins jumping off cliff

#78

Post by Tempest1981 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #51
jncfhnb wrote: post #29

Very odd footage imo. * most of the birds are falling in because they’re pushed, not because they’re jumping * most of the birds are belly flopping hard rather than diving in with any sort of graceful entry * most birds don’t appear to ever jump. I refuse to believe the camera wouldn’t have shown the whole population in the water if they had

> most of the birds are falling in because they’re pushed, not because they’re jumping It's the same as every other bird? It surprised me that it isn't their parents pushing them.

The pushing starts when the ones a few rows back want a closer look... might not be deliberate or premeditated.

Re: Drone footage of fledging penguins jumping off cliff

#80

Post by odyssey7 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #38
smusamashah wrote: post #17

Given this video is taken by a drone, and drones are very noisy, are the splashing sounds and sounds of penguins chirping added later?

Sounds in almost all nature documentary videos are added later from separate sources.

That makes sense. I'd never thought about it. You've saved me the disappointment of visiting Antarctica to realize that David Attenborough's voice doesn't just chime in whenever you look at something.
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