Sun compass in animals internal clock to determine their heading, and that they had learnt the actual direction down to the sea on their particular beach. Lockley's experiments with Manx shearwaters ("Puffinus puffinus") showed that when released "under a clear sky" far from their nests (in Skokholm), the seabirds first oriented themselves and then "flew off in a direct line for Skokholm", making the journey rapidly. For example, one of the birds, released at Boston airport, arrived in Skokholm 12½ days later; Lockley calculated that if the birds flew for 12 hours per day, they must have travelled at 20 miles per hour, their
Flinders Island provided by many small streams, few of them permanently flowing directly leading to the waters of Bass Strait or such a lagoon. The coastal areas are mainly covered in scrub or shrubs, whereas the vegetation at a higher elevation consists of woodland, mainly eucalyptus species. The total number of plant species in the Furneaux Group well exceeds 800, showing the great biodiversity of its ecosystem. Native bird species include the Cape Barren goose ("Cereopsis novaehollandiae") and the short-tailed shearwater ("Puffinus tenuirostris"). Marsupial mammals are represented by Bennett's wallaby ("Macropus rufogriseus"), brushtail possum ("Trichosurus vulpecula"), eastern pygmy possum ("Cercartetus nanus"), potoroo