Migration of Birds (1950)Lincoln, Frederick Charles
Science
Migration of Birds (1950)
Lincoln, Frederick Charles
Birds; Birds -- Migration
An interesting comparison of the flights of day and night migrants
may be made through a consideration of the spring migrations of the
blackpolled warbler and the cliff swallow. Both spend the winter
in South America, at which season they are neighbors. But when the
impulse comes to start northward toward their respective breeding
grounds, the warblers strike straight across the Caribbean Sea
to Florida (fig. 6), while the swallows begin their journey by a
westward flight of several hundred miles to Panama (fig. 3.). Thence
they move leisurely along the western shore of the Caribbean Sea
to Mexico, and continuing to avoid a long trip over water, they
go completely around the western end of the Gulf of Mexico. This
circuitous route adds more than 2,000 miles to the journey of the
swallows that nest in Nova Scotia. The question may be asked: "Why
should the swallow select a route so much longer and more roundabout
than that taken by the blackpolled warbler?" The simple explanation
is that the swallow is a day migrant while the warbler travels at
night. The migration of the warbler is made up of a series of long,
nocturnal flights, alternated with days of rest and feeding in
favorable localities. The swallow, on the other hand, starts its
migration several weeks earlier and catches each day's ration of
flying insects during a few hours of aerial evolutions, which at the
same time carry it slowly in the proper direction. Flying along the
insect-teeming shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the 2,000 extra miles
that are added to the migration route are but a fraction of the
distance that these birds cover in pursuit of their daily food.
Although most of our smaller birds make their longest flights at
night, close observation will show that travel is continued to some
extent by day. This is particularly true during the latter half of
a migratory season when the birds show evidence of an overpowering
desire to hasten to their breeding grounds. At this time flocks of
birds while feeding maintain a movement in the general direction of
the seasonal journey. Sometimes they travel hurriedly, and while
their flights may be short, they must cover an appreciable distance
in the course of a day.
_How Birds Migrate_
=Speed of flight and speed of migration=
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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