As you watch birds return to your yard, or sometimes leave your yard to go even further north, read through these fun facts about bird migration. You might learn something new! They can travel as fast as 30 mph 48 kph when migrating. Their migratory path takes them across the Gulf of Mexico twice a year. They fly this nonstop, which can be as far as miles. To reach their destination in time, some travel at speeds of 30mph. At this speed, birds take up to hours to reach their final destination.
Traveling 8 hours a day, it would take some birds 66 days to reach their migration destination. This means the birds have been traveling a long time by the time they get to your backyard!
Make sure they are welcomed with fresh food and water when they arrive. Some birds migrate at high altitudes Not all birds travel low where we can see them.
Songbirds travel at an altitude as high as to 2, feet. Geese and vultures have been known to travel at altitudes of 29,, feet high. Use precise geolocation data.
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Select personalised ads. They, like many other birds, are migrating. Migration is the movement of an animal from one region, or habitat, to another. This happens at regular periods of time, and during a particular season. Animals migrate in order to breed, grow, find food or avoid cold weather. For birds, this occurs twice a year. They migrate in the spring and again in the fall. All bird species have feathers.
There are several other characteristics that birds share, but feathers are the only characteristic completely unique to birds. Many might say that it is flight that makes birds special, but did you know that not all birds fly? Emu, kiwi, cassowary, penguin, ostrich and rhea are birds that don't fly. Some birds swim, like the penguin, which does its flying underwater. Learn all about flightless birds. Birds have many interesting adaptations to benefit their life in the air. They have lightweight, yet strong, bones and beaks , which are adaptations to reduce weight for flying.
Birds have incredible eyes , ears , feet , and nests. We enjoy listening to the songs of birds. Discover more about birds. Birds seek out places that have warmth, food and are safe for breeding. In the Southern Hemisphere, especially in the tropical climates , it is warm enough — since there is little change in the length of the days from month to month — that birds are able to find an adequate food supply year round.
The steady daylight gives birds plenty of time to eat each day, so they don't need to go someplace else to find food. During the long days of the northern summer, birds have more hours to feed their young on the abundant insect population. But as the days shorten during autumn and food supplies become scarce, some birds migrate south. Not all birds migrate. There are some species that manage to survive winter while staying in the Northern Hemisphere. Typically, familiar species such pigeons, crows, ravens and blackbirds stay put all year round.
There are 4 kinds of migrating birds:. Each species migrates at a certain time of year and time of day. Some are very irregular in their migration patterns.
Some species start their migration south in early July, and some don't migrate until the weather gets too harsh or food becomes unavailable later in the fall. On the flip side, which bird species arrive in spring and which ones leave before summer? This is a movement between breeding and non-breeding ranges. Summer visitors arrive from the south and winter from the north. Particularly common in continental Europe, this is the movement of birds between eastern and western regions.
Irregular migrations are caused by a lack of food and water, resulting in large numbers of birds flying to unfamiliar areas. Like irruptions, these result from a lack of vital resources, but birds cover shorter distances and stay within a familiar range. This is a movement from high to low ground during the colder months, usually over short distances. Skylarks do this. During moulting season — often a vulnerable time for birds — species such as shelducks head to safer grounds.
This is most frequently seen in autumn when young birds become confused, flying against their expected route. Summer visitors are birds that arrive on British shores in spring to breed. They spend summer in Britain, rearing their young before returning south in autumn. The most intriguing question about our summer visitors is not why they go south, but why they return to Britain year after year. On the whole, there are two factors that compel them to come here.
First, there is plenty of room to hold territory without being crowded out by African birds. And secondly, the long daylight hours allow birds to feed their young for longer every day, helping them to grow quickly. And it is this, on a February morning, that beckons the swallow northward.
February is the big moving month — soon it will be on the wing. Most of bird species that leave Britain in autumn go to Africa, but not all.
The Manx shearwater flies across the oceans to spend the winter off Argentina, while, famously, the Arctic tern swaps the extreme north for the extreme south, reaching and sometimes circumnavigating Antarctica. At the other end of the scale, birds such as blackcaps may take the short-haul option and while the winter away in Spain, alongside human ex-pats.
The advantages of going south are obvious, particularly for insectivorous birds. Swallows and nightingales would be taking a big chance to risk a British winter, when just a few very cold days could be enough to starve them to death. Further south there is more food all year round, but there is also much more competition. Not only are there African resident birds, but also migrants from Europe and Asia. A patch of scrubby African forest is quite a melting pot of nationalities between October and March.
Wherever they end up, there is no doubt that their immediate surroundings will look considerably different to the frigid, bare British countryside in winter. In Spain or North Africa, migrants will forage among olive leaves and evergreen scrub. Willow warblers in tropical Africa feed in the crowns of acacia trees on lush savannah, where only giraffes can reach. Cuckoos will disappear into dense forests, while garden warblers will head into thick montane scrub with a biodiversity many times higher than ours.
Northern wheatears swap moorland for semi-desert landscapes, and nightingales will sometimes throw off the reticence they show in the UK and feed in gardens and patches of cultivated land in Africa.
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