A fluffy little albatross chick is born on Gough Island in the Tristan da Cunha archipelago far off the African coastline in the southern Atlantic Ocean. With a large body, tiny wings and webbed feet, he doesn't exactly look like one of the most graceful birds on the planet. Yet, under the care of both parents that bring back fresh supplies of regurgitated fish, his little wings will grow long and narrow, while the chubby body continues to put on weight. At around seven months old, he will join many others of his species in running (i.e. waddling at speed) along the ground into the wind, eventually taking to the skies. He will spend the next five years gliding ever more gracefully and efficiently over the ocean, rarely touching land. The combination of a heavy body and long, narrow wings make it difficult to take off and land (crash-landings are common!), but the real advantage is in the air. Albatrosses have what is known in aerodynamic terms as high wing-loading (i.e. very heavy relative to their wing size) and a high wing aspect ratio (i.e. long and narrow wings), plus a special sheet of muscle that keeps the wing locked in position during gliding. Albatrosses boast the longest wingspan of any bird in the world, with the largest species (the wandering albatross) topping the charts at a staggering three metres. Taken together, these features make the albatrosses perfect gliders – allowing them to fly for thousands of kilometres with minimal energy spent on wing flapping. Similar to soaring birds on land that use wind thermals to gain height, albatrosses use the wind generated just above the ocean surface to maintain their momentum with a technique called dynamic soaring. They alternate between gliding in the same direction as the wind to pick up speed - while losing altitude - and then banking to face the wind just before they touch the ocean surface to create lift. Once they have gained sufficient altitude against the wind – but just before they lose speed altogether - they bank again to glide downwards with the wind. In this manner, the wandering albatross can maintain a speed of 80 km/h for days on end and circumnavigate the globe in only 46 days!