To a seabird, the ocean is nothing like the featureless expanse of water we see. It’s an elaborate landscape of eddying odor plumes that reflect the oceanographic features and physical processes where phytoplankton predictably amass. “We speculate that the birds build up a map of this olfactory landscape over time from experience,” says Nevitt, “and use it to guide them to likely areas for prey.” This is the sort of news that turns the kaleidoscope for a new worldview: of seabirds as feathered hounds, yes, but also of the planet itself, the air above the ocean as an invisible landscape full of
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