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Basically, wandering albatrosses don’t fly. They soar.
基本上，漂泊信天翁(wandering albatrosses)不是飞行，而是翱翔。
The more distance you cover, the more you may find food.
飞的距离越远，找到的食物就越多。
The wandering albatross’s keen senses of sight and smell help it locate prey.
漂泊信天翁敏锐的视觉和嗅觉帮助它定位猎物。
But these senses are good for about 100 kilometers—a distance the bird can travel in as little as an hour and a half.
不过，这些感官在大约100公里的范围内是有效的——这种鸟在一个半小时内就可以飞完这段距离。
So how does the albatross know where to soar toward?
那么，信天翁是怎么知道要飞向哪里的呢?
There does seem to be this large gap in information that they’re able to access.
信天翁与人类获得的信息之间似乎存在巨大的差距。
A clue came in a chance encounter on the way to the Crozet Islands, part of the French Southern and Antarctic Territories, where Patrick was headed to study albatrosses.
帕特里克前往克罗泽群岛(位于法国南部的南极领地)研究信天翁，途中的一次偶遇给他提供了线索。
On the same vessel were some researchers from the [United Nations].
在同一艘船上有一些来自联合国的研究人员。
They were going to work with the hydrophone station that’s used to monitor nuclear tests. It also gathers infrasound data.
研究人员将利用水听器台站工作，水听器台站用于监测核试验，还可以用于收集次声数据。
And we came up with the question of whether seabirds could use infrasound.
我们提出了海鸟是否可以使用收集次声的工具的问题。
And it was clear that no one had really thought about this before, and that’s where the idea for the project came from.
很明显，之前没有人真正想过这个问题，这个项目的想法就是这么来的。
Infrasound is any sound below 20 hertz, where human hearing starts to drop off.
次声是频率低于20赫兹的声音。人类听力在次生波范围内开始逐渐减弱。
At the very low end of the infrasound spectrum are microbaroms—very low-frequency sounds between 0.1 and 0.6 Hz that are detectable across thousands of miles.
次声中的低频声波称为微气压(microbaroms)，这是一种频率在0.1至0.6赫兹之间的极低频声音。尽管频率极低，但信天翁在数千英里之外仍能探测到。
Microbaroms are generated by the collision of ocean waves.
微气压是由海浪碰撞产生的声波。
Natasha Gillies is a seabird ecologist at the University of Liverpool and a co-author of the study.
娜塔莎·吉利斯是利物浦大学的海鸟生态学家，也是这项研究的合著者。
The constant hum of microbarom infrasound is called “the voice of the sea.”
这种持续不断的微气压次声波被称为“海洋之声”。
It’s present everywhere, all the time. But it’s unevenly distributed.
这种次声波每时每刻无处不在。但这种声波的分布并不均匀。
Where you have more energy in the ocean system because you have wavier areas or windy areas, then you get louder microbarom regions.
在海洋系统中有活力的地区，比如，多浪区或多风区，这里的微气压声波值也会更大。
Ideal soaring conditions for wandering albatrosses.
这样的区域是漂泊信天翁理想的翱翔环境。
But it also gives them information about standing ocean waves, and this is often caused by things like storms.
但这也为漂泊信天翁提供了海洋驻波的信息，而这通常是由风暴等因素引起的。
So it would enable birds to try and gauge where storms are, potentially.
这将使这种鸟能够尝试判断风暴的潜在位置。
