Migration Routes

7-7-10 Eight days till our birding trip to Iceland.

Not all bird species migrate, but those that do follow instincts whose sources reach back before the existence of man. Birds follow migration routes heading south then heading north in a process that never stops.

When birds in North America head south, some yankee birds are satisfied just reaching Dixie, which is understandable. Other species are looking for a vacation in Central America. And still others, like the Eastern Kingbird ( Tyrannus tyrannus ), migrate all the way to Peru, where they form huge flocks of thousands of birds.

When we talk of migration routes, we are talking about the flight paths a bird takes migrating from the north to the south, and back again. There are four main migration routes in North America. Birds generally stay in their chosen migration route for the entire migration, only correcting for navigational errors the following year.

The migration routes in the United States are :
1. up and down along the Pacific coast
2. east of the Rocky Mountains, thru the plains states
3. up and down the Mississippi River system
4. up and down the Atlantic coast

Birds seeking to migrate to South America either have to squeeze past the hawks in Texas ( hawks hunt smaller birds during migration ) or else fly to Florida and island-hop through the Gulf of Mexico heading for South America, where they will feel instinctively compelled to turn around and migrate back the way they came.

Birds generally stay in the migration route they chose. They follow the flock. And so, with a great number of delightful exceptions, you can predict, with a dose of healthy scepticism, which bird species you might see by selecting a particular route of migration.

Inside the Pacific coast migration route, we saw the Winter Wren ( Troglodytes troglodytes ) and the Common Loon ( Gavia immer ).

Along the eastern side of the Rockies we saw the Mountain Bluebird ( Sialia currucoides ) and the Yellow-billed Magpie ( Pica nuttalli ).

In the Mississippi flight path we have seen the White-Faced Ibis ( Plegadis chihi ) and the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher ( Tyrannus forficatus ).

Along the east coast of North America, we have seen the American Bittern ( Botaurus lentiginosus ) and the Golden Eagle ( Aquila chrysaetos ).

And here is the point of this post... the island of Iceland is part of a completely different migration route.

A few species actually stay in Iceland during the winter, staying warm in geothermal hot springs in Iceland. Other birds migrate from Iceland through the United Kingdom and on to the mountains in Morocco. A few species go all the way...

The Arctic Tern ( Sterna Paradisaea ) is champion of them all, flying from Iceland down past England, then jumping to France and Spain, then flying to Northwest Africa and following the West African coast all the way down to the Republic of South Africa and the continent of Antarctica at the bottom of the world. That is the longest known migration of any bird on Earth.

Hence, if everything goes according to plan, Berry and I ought to see, along with the exceptions we talked about, a whole new set of species in a completely different migration route. This will be delightful, as previously mentioned.

-Robert