Educate Yourself About Migrating Birds
Learn about bird migration
Bird migration is one of the most eagerly witnessed wildlife spectacles, especially by migrations watchers. When spring arrives to our bird feeding gardens and those southern flows of spring wind gives us the signal that birds are arriving from their wintering in warmer climates very soon.
The first arrivals you might encounter are the swifts, swallows, and martins flying above your head. You probably will find some flycatcher, and warblers roaming around in new fresh foliage, and hear the song of some tanagers and mockingbirds close by. And as soon as spring and summer has arrived and passed they will soon leave, and make room for new arriving birds such as redpolls, sparrows, and titmice at the end of summer.
Even though migration seems to be an exhausting encounter to most birds, with many thousands of miles under their wings every year, this has a clear benefit to many different kinds of birds. The main reason for migration is the need to find great food supplies, and many of you might think that most birds which migrate are driven so by hunger. But if you carefully think about it, you will notice that most birds that migrate will prepare for their long journeys by eating more and building up a large fat supply long before any food supplies run out.
Most birds will leave their breeding grounds in the fall, and once they are ready to take of they will wait for some favorable winds and weather to come along, and of they go. You probably noticed that when you watch migrating birds, they are usually larger birds, and the reason for this is because larger birds travel by day, while smaller birds will travel by night. Most birds will leave around the same time, but there are some birds that will linger like the swallows who will feed on late surviving insects as well as fall and winter fruits.
Birds like the swifts and others that consume mainly insects will leave much earlier, and some birds like the warbler which can change its diet of mainly insect into seeds and fruit, might delay its departure some what as well.
About 200 different species, (35%) of all North American land birds will migrate to mostly Central America and the Caribbean Islands for the winter, but most other birds will migrate far to the south of the United States. The Purple Martin will probably take first place when it comes to migrating, with their large flocks of thousands of birds occupying massive roosts in their winter home of Brazil.
When spring time arrives most birds will hurry back to set up their territories and nesting spots. The swallows will travel about 25 miles (40 kilometers) per day, unless some cold harsh weather or strong headwinds will hold them up, and will keep their northward route through North America as temperatures slowly increases.
Spring and fall can be the most promising time for some unusual birds to show up at your bird feeding garden, as birds take frequent rest stops during their long migration. Most of them are of course common birds, but you might be lucky enough to spot birds form Latin America and the Arctic.
There are some winters when special events occur such as “irruption”, and they are sudden invasions of birds that have a large loss of food supplies in their summer homes. One bird that is known for this is the Bohemian Waxwing which will do so, from the Canadian forests when their crops of mountain ash fail.
It is always important for migrating birds when they first arrive to their breeding territories that there are winter-persistent fruit available such as bayberry, crabapples, and highbush cranberry. Sometimes late winter storms have left snow covered grounds, and these winter fruits can then become very important to especially winter-stranded birds like phoebes, waxwings, and robins.
There are some birds that find themselves in a different location than they intended, such as European birds on their long southward travels. If these birds get caught in large winter storms they can actually be thousands of miles off their usual route, ending up in New England and the Canadian Maritimes instead.
