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As far as the parents go, well, first, they typically can’t get enough food in a single location,
就父母们飞得那么远而言，首先，它们一般在一个地点找不到足够的食物，
so they have to visit several places on the same foraging trip.
所以它们出去觅一趟食必须去好几个地方。
And the locations of good foraging grounds tend to be very far apart.
而好的觅食地点往往分布得很开。
And second, they can’t always nest on an island that’s closest to the best feeding ground because some of those islands have too many predators on them.
第二，它们不能总是把巢筑在离最佳的觅食地点最近的岛上，因为一些那种海岛上有太多食肉动物。
Predators that would just love some little chicks to snack on, so I don’t think they have much choice.
食肉动物很喜欢吃一些小雏鸟，所以我觉得它们没什么选择。
But it still works out because albatross fly using a technique called dynamic soaring,
但这还是行得通的，因为信天翁会用一种叫做动力翱翔的技巧飞行，
which enables them to cover very long distances while expending very little energy.
这使它们能飞越很长的距离，同时几乎不消耗什么能量。
If it weren’t for that, you’d be right, they would probably burn up all their energy just flying back and forth.
如果没有那个技巧，你可能就是对的，仅仅飞个来回它们可能就会耗尽所有的能量。
Another factor is albatross lay only one egg at a time,
另一个因素是信天翁一次只下一个蛋，
so when the parent returns with the food that one chick doesn’t have to share it with a lot of other chicks. Yes, Nancy?
所以当父母带着食物回来时，雏鸟不用和很多其他雏鸟分食。Nancy，请说？
So you’re saying that they might easily fly a thousand miles over the open ocean when they’re looking for food?
所以你说它们在寻找食物时也许能轻易飞过一千英里的远海？
That’s right.
没错。
Then how do they know how to get to the food? I mean, which direction to take to get to the food and how do they find their way back home?
那它们怎么知道该如何接近食物呢？我是说，它们怎么知道该飞往哪个方向才能找到食物，还有怎么找到回家的路？
Good point. And the truth is we are not sure, it’s very difficult to keep seabirds in captivity where you can study them.
问得好。事实上我们也不确定，要把海鸟关起来进行研究非常困难。
And it’s very difficult to study them in the wild, you know, but we think that a lot of what we’ve learned about songbirds probably applies to seabirds as well.
而且在野外研究它们也很困难，但是我们认为我们了解的很多关于鸣鸟的知识可能也能用在海鸟身上。
