Migration of Birds (1950)Lincoln, Frederick Charles
Science
Migration of Birds (1950)
Lincoln, Frederick Charles
Birds; Birds -- Migration
The blue goose presents a striking example of a late but very rapid
spring migration. Practically all members of the species winter in
the great coastal marshes of Louisiana, where 50,000 or more may
be seen grazing in the "pastures" or flying overhead in flocks of
various sizes. Their breeding grounds are chiefly on Baffin Island
and on Southampton Island in the northern part of Hudson Bay, in a
region where conditions of severe cold prevail except for a few weeks
each year. The birds seem to realize that even though the season in
their winter quarters is advancing rapidly, their nesting grounds
are still covered with a heavy blanket of ice and snow. Accordingly
they remain in the coastal marshes until the last of March or the
first of April, when the local birds are already busily engaged with
the duties of reproduction. The flight northward is rapid, almost
nonstop, so far as the United States is concerned, for although the
birds are sometimes recorded in large numbers in the Mississippi
Valley, including eastern South Dakota, and in southeastern Manitoba,
there are few records anywhere along the route of such great flocks
as are known to winter in Louisiana. When the birds arrive in the
James Bay region of Canada they apparently enjoy a prolonged period
of rest, as they are not noted in the vicinity of their breeding
grounds until the first of June. During the first 2 weeks of that
month they pour into the tundra country by the thousands, and each
pair immediately sets about the business of rearing a brood.
The robin has been mentioned as a slow migrant, and as a species it
takes 78 days to make the 3,000-mile trip from Iowa to Alaska, a
stretch of country that is crossed by advancing spring in 68 days.
In this case, however, it does not mean that individual robins are
necessarily slow, for probably the northward movement of the species
depends upon the continual advance of birds from the rear, the first
individuals arriving in a suitable locality remaining to nest, while
the northward movement of the species is continued by those still to
come.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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