Scientists had their socks knocked off when it was announced that a Christmas Island frigate bird they named Lydia had made a 26-day non-stop journey of 2,500 miles to gather food for her chick. After leaving the youngster with its father, the mom crossed Indonesia and some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes on her quest.

Before the flight, which was tracked with a global positioning device, scientists thought the longest food-gathering flights the birds made spanned "only" hundreds of miles and lasted "only" days.

The feat was picked up by newspapers all over the world, many of which put it on the front page. And it’s no doubt impressive. Imagine the adventures the bird faced as it flew over and around volcanoes, mining sites, commercial fishing fleets.

Since frigate birds do not land in the water (to do so is to die), they must snatch jellyfish and other creatures from the surface or steal food from other birds. Lydia would probably shrug and say it was all in a day’s work.

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Magnificent frigate birds are mostly black, soaring birds with a wing span of 7 feet or more. For their great size, they are the lightest birds in the world.

Watching them in the tropics, trying to keep your eye on single individuals as they swoop and soar with hardly a wingbeat, you wonder how long they can keep it up.

Those nesting on the Galapagos Islands routinely fly to Peru to feed their chicks, a round trip of at least 1,200 miles. Not Lydia, but nothing to sneeze at.

But as parents who routinely go the extra mile, frigate birds are far from unique. Consider the marbled murrelet of the coastal Northwest. This little diving bird makes its home in old-growth forests, where it lays a lone egg on a moss-covered branch high on an old spruce or hemlock tree as much as 30 miles from the ocean.

Unfortunately for them, most such trees have been logged. The parents do daily what Lydia spent a month doing. They fly at dawn to sea, where they may dive 100 feet down, in spite of predators, pollution and fishermen’s nets, to catch the fish to feed their chicks.

Another extraordinary parent that can be seen in Oregon is the tufted puffin. Pairs nest in tunnels dug into off-shore rocks beyond the reach of predators. To feed the single chick, all the adults have to do is dive into the ocean and pursue squid, fish or mollusks by flapping their tiny wings in pursuit and "flying" underwater. This is a bird the size of a pigeon but twice the weight!

The parent bird must catch up to a dozen small, minnow-like fish. Then all he has to do is to arrange them neatly, head-to-tail, inside his bill, and dart up and fly out of the sea with his heavy body and his tiny wings flapping madly.

Consider the "mobbing" behavior in which groups of small birds attack larger birds who fly near their nests. It’s roughly analogous to humans running out of camp to beat grizzly bears with their fists.

And there is the emperor penguin. As everyone who has seen "March of the Penguins" knows, the conversation between Ma and Pa Penguin (which seem to be imprinted on their genetic makeup and does not involve speaking English) goes something like this:

Her: OK, I’ve laid the egg.

Him: Good job.

Her: Gotta run. Can you watch it?

Him: Sure.

Her: I’ll be gone a couple months. It’ll be 90 degrees below zero, and dark, and there will be 100 mph winds.

Him: OK.

Her: And there’s nothing to eat.

Him: OK.

Her: Oh, and if the egg touches the ground it’s dead meat, so you’ll have to balance it on your toes the whole time.

Him: OK.

Her: Bye. I’ll bring snacks for Junior. Unless I get eaten by a leopard seal.

Emperor penguins probably claim the title of world’s best dads. But every wild bird you see is an athlete using amazing skills to get through the day and raise the kids. Talk about family values.

Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail bvarble@mailtribune.com.