The most diligent mother mother

A Christmas island frigate named Lydia recently flew for 26 days over a distance of more than 4,000 km - across Indonesian volcanoes and some of Asia's busiest maritime routes - to find food for you.

The flight, tracked by scientists at Christmas Island National Park with a global positioning device, is the farthest known nonstop flight of this endangered seabird.

In the past, it was thought that scavengers with black-and-white fur and this very typical pink beak only flew a few hundred kilometers away from the nest, and each time only lasted a few days.

" This is a real discovery ," said David James, biodiversity monitoring coordinator at Christmas Island National Park.

Lydia's journey begins October 18 from Christmas Island, an Australian island on the Indian Ocean, about 480 km south of Jakarta (Indonesia), 2,500 km northwest of Perth, in Western Australia.

Leaving a child to take care of his partner, Lydia headed south to open waters, able to steal other seabirds' fish, a habit of scavengers. Later, it glided back on October 26 and flew between Indonesia and Sumatra islands of Indonesia. From there, she crossed the island of Borneo on 9 November before flying back to Java and returning to the nest on November 18, where she fed her.

Although the flight was a record long for a frigate, it was far from "meeting" a 46-day flight of a gray-headed seagull.

Lydia is one of four Christmas frigate birds tagged with satellite tracking. They provide scientists with the necessary information about flight routes and frigate feeding patterns. In the past, most of such data was provided by bird watchers. Officials hope new data will help improve conservation.

There are only about 1,200 frigate birds on this small island in the Indian Ocean, making them one of the most endangered seabirds in the world.

T. An