Migration of Birds (1950)Lincoln, Frederick Charles
Science
Migration of Birds (1950)
Lincoln, Frederick Charles
Birds; Birds -- Migration
There are many species, including the tree sparrow, slate-colored
junco, and Lapland longspur, that nest in Canada and winter in the
United States; while others, including the vesper sparrow, chipping
sparrow, grackles, red-winged blackbirds, bluebirds, the woodcock,
and several species of ducks, nest in the northern United States and
move south for the winter to areas along the Gulf of Mexico. This
list includes the more hardy species, some individuals of which may
linger in protected places well within the reach of severe cold, as,
for example, Wilson's snipe or jacksnipe, which frequently is found
during subzero weather in parts of the Rocky Mountain region where
warm springs assure a food supply. More than 100 of our summer birds
leave the United States entirely and spend the winter in the West
Indies, or in Central America or South America. For example, the
Cape May warbler, which breeds from northern New England, northern
Michigan, and northern Minnesota, north to New Brunswick, Nova
Scotia, and nearly to Great Slave Lake, is concentrated in winter
chiefly in the West Indies, its metropolis at this season being the
island of Hispaniola.
=Long-distance migrations=
Some of the common summer residents are not content with a trip to
northern South America, but push on across the Equator and finally
come to rest for the winter in the pampas of Argentina, or even
in Patagonia. Thus some species that are more or less associated
with each other in summer, as nighthawks, barn swallows, cliff
swallows, and some of the thrushes, may also occupy the same general
winter quarters in Brazil. Some individual nighthawks and barn
swallows travel still farther, and of all North American land birds
these species probably have the longest migration route, as they
occur north in summer to Yukon and Alaska, and south in winter to
Argentina, 7,000 miles away. Such seasonal flights are exceeded in
length, however, by the journeys of several species of water birds,
chiefly members of the suborder of shore birds. In this group there
are 19 species that breed north of the Arctic Circle and winter in
South America, 6 of them going as far south as Patagonia, and thus
having a migration route more than 8,000 miles in length.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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