Migration can be a long and hard journey, and the bigger the bird, the harder it seems the journey would be as the bird has to keep its heavy body flying such a distance.
However, birds have a unique bone structure that makes flying and the rigors of migration easier for them — hollow bones!
A human bone is dense and filled with bone marrow. However, a bird bone is hollow and filled with air. It also has some cross-sections of bone, called struts, that make the bone strong and help birds withstand taking off, flying and landing.
According to Matt Wedel of the University of California Berkeley, as a baby bird grows, the air sacs that make up its lungs “invade” its bones, forming a bunch of tiny hollows. The air sacs stay attached to these hollows for a bird’s life. This, along with a forward-and-backward arrangement of air sacs, helps give birds a little-known superpower: They can take in oxygen while both inhaling and exhaling.
Picture Credit : Google