This is Bird No. When they migrate tiny songbirds that spend most of their lives on

land fly hundreds of miles over the ocean at a stretch and they get tired. That's

why the first stretch of coast along a migration route often has thousands of

exhausted birds landing and taking a break. There are also stories about ships at

sea hosting worn out migratory birds, but for the most part scientists saw

those as rare events. However a new study suggests it could be more common

than once thought. A group of oceanographers spent a few weeks in the Mediterranean

sea and noticed something unusual. Nearly every day that summer more than one

bird would land on their boat and spend a few minutes or a few hours of

board before flying away. And they weren't just sea birds like goals. They were

land birds that don't frequent the high seas, apparently catching their

breath on the boat and then resuming their epic journeys.

The researchers think that there are now enough ships in the busy Mediterranean

trade routes that some birds might use them as stopover sites when the weather

turns bad. Like any expert traveler, birds know how to use their resources

to make it to their destination.

For Bird Note, I'm Ariana Rimmel.