# Seabirds racing home over the ocean can get jet-lagged

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/seabirds-racing-home-over-the-ocean-can-get-jet-lagged/
- Published: 2026-10-31T11:15:26+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-31T12:03:23+00:00
- Original publisher: Ars Technica
- Original article: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/10/seabirds-racing-home-over-the-ocean-can-get-jet-lagged/
- Topics: Culture, Travel

## Key points

- Manx shearwaters’ internal clocks drift during long flights.
- The drift can skew their Sun-based compass.
- Researchers analysed 3,688 trips by 1,045 birds.

## Summary

A study of Manx shearwaters suggests the seabirds can become jet-lagged while flying home from feeding grounds, throwing off their ability to navigate by the Sun. The finding shows that an internal clock drifting out of sync with local time can affect wild animals’ natural navigation.

Researchers analysed GPS tracks from 3,688 foraging trips by 1,045 birds from colonies on the UK’s western coasts, collected over two decades. A bird’s clock can fall about four minutes behind local time for each degree of longitude it travels between dawn and dusk, causing its estimated Sun compass to shift; the article says the effect can reach about an hour.

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