This is a bird note.

How is it that seabirds have no problem drinking sea water?

The salt they take in is absorbed and moves through their

bloodstream into a pair of salt glands above their eyes. The densely

salty fluid that results is excreted from the nostrils and runs down grooves in the bill.

Watch a gull at the coast and you will see drops of this liquid appear on the tip of its bill.

As the drop gets larger, the bird shakes its head to send the

salt back to the ocean.

A seabird's skull has a pair of grooves for the salt glands right over the eyes.

These grooves are especially large in penguins, lunes, albatrosses, gulls, and puffins, but other marine birds have them too.

But don't confuse drinking with bathing.

Some coastal birds prefer to bathe in fresh water. Don't confuse drinking with bathing.

Some coastal birds prefer to bathe in fresh water

and will stop at a river mouth

or fly inland to a lake to take their daily bath.

They seem to relish the freshwater.

But they're quite able to drink from the sea.

For Bird Note, I'm Mary McCann.

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