Albatross can sleep while flying!

Did you know that an albatross can sleep while flying? I first read about this from a weak advertisement as I browsed through a magazine and then researched it on the internet to confirm that the fact was true. Indeed it is; furthermore, I learned that the albatross is a rather large bird (that spends almost all of its life at sea or in the air). How large? Some, like the wandering albatross, have been reported with wingspans of up to eleven feet (11') long!

My first reaction was to wonder how, and the next was to dream about the sensation of sustained flight without using anything but the wind. My guess was that the bird stays aloft on major trade winds or they utilize some sort of phenomena in air that is near the ocean surface. I still don't know exactly, but this site from students(?) at Wake Forest University shows how an albatross can glide without having to flap their wings using just the current of the wind. This process is called dynamic soaring, and there's a short animation that depicts how it works on the link provided.

Furthermore, these birds live a potentially long life, as I have read they can live past 50 years of age. However, what most often threatens their lifespan today is a method of fishing such as "longlining" (using thousands of baited hooks trailing off of long lines behind a boat or set between buoys) can snag an albatross that goes for the bait and drown it or a hook may get fed to its chicks if it successfully removes the and gill nets; it can get to be a problem, and the Kiwi Conservation club in New Zealand, asks for people to write the Minister of Fisheries to request for better conservation and fishing policy.

I've become fascinated with the albatross since reading that tidbit, and I realize as I type that the advertisement did direct my interest to learn more about the bird rather than their product (something to do with software, though I doubt I needed it anyhow). If a company is going to put a fascinating fact up such as "albatross can sleep while flying," I would expect that whatever follows should be at the least equally interesting or significant. Not "they don't see where they're going" in big print and then somewhere at the bottom of the page write what their company has to offer. Or maybe follow up with something like "albatross can sleep while flying, and some pilots can too, but they know where they'll end up if they do".

Anyhow, I wonder what the albatross dream about when they sleep aloft.