BlueGreen Labs was happy to lead a high impact paper on swift non-breeding behaviour in the Proceedings B of the Royal Society. We collaborated with four teams to gather experimental evidence across three swift species on their nighttime flight behaviour in response to moonlight. After analysis we suggest that swifts optimize their flight behaviour to adapt to favourable night-time light conditions, driven by light-responsive and size-dependent vertical insect stratification and weather conditions.
This works follows on previous work in Oikos along the same research lines and by the same team, but led by Lyndon Kearsley, discussing the influence of atmospheric convergence zones on flight behaviour. Combined, these two studies provide an insight into how swifts optimize their behaviour to their flight environment, let it be wind and/or moonlight.
