I tried this trick today with no success. Wonder if it's been patched. I can get to about 30 seconds, but the non-typical hills in the middle of island 2 muck me up every time.
One thing that helped me was to do really slow jumps on the first island, ie. Not holding down but just tapping in the air and then as the bird lands briefly. It took a few attempts, but it means you only have to make 2 landings on the second island to get 34s or w.e it was.
