Sadly, hunters kill some of these birds when they land to rest on islands in the Lesser Antilles. In total, they may travel 6,800 miles (11,000 kilometers). Satellite telemetry has shown that some whimbrels travel from northwest Canada, across the North American continent to Canada’s east coast, then set off over the Atlantic Ocean on a 3,400-mile (5,400-kilometer), six-day nonstop flight to the coast of Brazil. Individual differences in migratory behavior are probably due to differences in physical condition, learning, experience and personal preferences.Īnother shorebird, the whimbrel, also makes a phenomenally long journey over the ocean. Satellite telemetry studies show how much individual birds, even those from the same breeding location, vary in their migratory behavior. Recently, a godwit set the record for the longest nonstop flight by a land bird: 8,100 miles (13,000 kilometers) in ten days, from Alaska to Australia. Satellite transmitters show that godwits often fly nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand. The scientist can learn where a bird is, the route it took to get there and how fast it travels.įor example, the bar-tailed godwit, a pigeon-sized shorebird, breeds in Alaska and then migrates to New Zealand. Researchers fit birds with small solar-powered transmitters, which send data on the birds’ locations to a satellite and then on to a scientist’s office computer. The first is satellite telemetry of bird movement. Three new technologies are rapidly expanding what we know about bird migration. Expect great birding, and dial into local activity in your county with Migration Dashboard: - Cornell Lab Tracking individual birds via satellite Welcome to peak migration- predicts >300 MILLION birds aloft each of the next 3 nights. The network will become increasingly useful for understanding bird migration as more receiver stations become active along migration tracks. Now, scientists are setting up a global network of receiver stations called the Motus Network, which currently has 1,500 receivers in 31 countries. Each receiver constantly records the presence of any birds or other animals within a nine-mile (15-kilometer) radius that scientists have fitted with small, lightweight radio transmitters, and shares the data online. Ornithologists have also learned to use NEXRAD, a national network of Doppler weather radars, to visualize birds migrating down the North American continent. Using the popular eBird network, birders all over the world can upload sightings to a central database, creating a real-time record of the ebb and flow of migration. The power of the internet has greatly aided migratory bird research. These new and constantly improving technologies are key aids for protecting migratory birds in the face of habitat loss and other threats. Today, technological advances are providing new insights into bird migration and showing that it is more complex and wonderful than scientists ever imagined. Later, using radar at airports and weather stations, they discovered how weather and other factors affect when birds migrate and how high they fly. Using observation records and data collected through bird banding, 20th-century ornithologists roughly mapped general migration routes and timing for most migratory species. Other birds leave temperate Eurasia for Africa, tropical Asia or Australia. and Canada to wintering grounds in the southern U.S., Caribbean and Latin America, sometimes covering thousands of miles. Although it still feels like beach weather across much of North America, billions of birds have started taking wing for one of nature’s great spectacles: fall migration.
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