Migration of Birds (1979)Lincoln, Frederick Charles
Science
Migration of Birds (1979)
Lincoln, Frederick Charles
Birds; Birds -- Migration
Several North American warblers including the Connecticut warbler
(Fig. 25) and the western race of the palm warbler have been found to
follow circuitous migration routes. The Connecticut warbler is not
observed or banded on the East coast in spring, but it is recorded
farther inland during the season. Thus this warbler proceeds down
the East coast in the fall and up the interior of the continent in
the spring. Similarly, the western race of the palm warbler moves
from its breeding grounds directly east to the Appalachian Mountains
before turning south along the coast. Television tower kills in
northern Florida indicate the population is very concentrated here
at this time of year. In the spring this race also proceeds north
through the interior. Graber (1968) points out that the eastern
race of the palm warbler also proceeds south along the coast in the
fall and poses this question: "does the western population of this
species intentionally move toward the ancestral range, or is the fall
flight direction merely a consequence of the temperate zone westerly
circulation?"
Graber concluded from radar observations that the disparity in
seasonal flight directions of many migrants was a positive response
of migrants to favorable wind directions at that time of year. The
east-oriented trans-gulf migrants followed an elliptical migration
because postfrontal air flow in the fall at latitude 40° N is
northwesterly, and, in the spring southerly; whereas winds over
the Gulf of Mexico are consistently easterly or southeasterly.
Therefore, transgulf migrants returning north in the spring would
be moved westward across the Gulf unless they compensated for wind
drift. Observers were not aware of high-altitude drift before radar
(Bellrose and Graber 1963).
[Illustration: _Figure 25. Breeding range and migration routes of
the Connecticut warbler. From the breeding range in northern United
States and southern Canada, it migrates east in the fall to New
England, then south along the Atlantic coast to Florida and across
the West Indies to winter in South America. In the spring it does not
return by the same route but rather completes a loop by migrating
northwest across the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi Valley
(Adapted from Cooke 1915a)._]
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