Divers: Birds and humans

General banter about diving and why we love it.
Post Reply
User avatar
oldsalt
I've Got Gills
Posts: 1061
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 9:02 am

Divers: Birds and humans

Post by oldsalt »

While listening to a radio show about grebes, I thought about how different diving birds compare to humans. It seems that grebes dive by squeezing air out of their feathers and maintaining neutral buoyancy, while ducks must constantly kick while underwater to overcome their buoyancy. The following analogy occurred to me.

Alcids (puffins, auks, and such) swim with their wings. This compares to the Japanese Ama, Polynesian pearl divers, and other early free divers without fins who used their arms to reach the bottom.

Ducks are like my early days of diving prior to the advent of the bc. We would have a neutral buoyant depth, above that depth we kicked to stay down, below that depth we kicked to keep from sinking.

The grebe is the modern SCUBA diver, taking advantage of Archimedes Principle to maintain depth.

Just a funny thought.
-Curt :rawlings:
Happy to be alive.
Post Reply