Migrating songbirds fly 500 kilometres a day, study finds

[Judi Lynn]

Migrating songbirds fly 500 kilometres a day, study finds
Migration surprisingly fast, York University biology professor reports
Feb 12, 2009 03:22 PM

Noor Javed
Staff Reporter

Little migrating songbirds can fly more than 500 kilometres a day when they travel between their breeding ground in the United States to their South American wintering grounds, stunning researchers who previously knew little about the birds' migration.

"This is the first time anyone in the world has been able to map the songbird migration routes to the tropic and back," said study author Bridget Stutchbury, a biology professor at York University.

"The migration was surprisingly fast," said Stutchbury, the lead author of the paper published today in the journal Science.

~snip~
Data collected from the five wood thrushes and two purple martins that returned gave researchers a varied glimpse of the migration routes and winter destinations of the birds.

The study found songbirds' overall migration rate was two to six times more rapid in spring than in fall. One purple martin took 43 days to reach Brazil during fall migration, but in spring returned to its breeding colony in only 13 days.

More:
http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/586650

[Fresh_Start]

1. Isn't it amazing

they are migrating 300 miles/day instead of what researchers had previously estimated as 90 miles/day....even though they were wearing a monitoring device

[Peace Patriot]

2. I've heard about the prodigious migration flights of hummingbirds, and

I seem to recall that it can be a thousand miles--astonishing for such a small bird. How does it store energy for such a flight? But I have long thought that hummingbirds were not of this world--are visitors from a parallel universe or something. They seem entirely magical, the way they appear and disappear, and sometimes stop right in front of your face, and hover there, looking at you, as if to say, "Hi, Earthling!"

Anyway, I don't think 500 miles is the record, but it sure is impressive.

[semillama]

5. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds migrate over the Gulf of Mexico

Think about that the next time you see one buzzing around!

[Muttocracy]

3. Humans are wimps! :-)

[sofa king]

4. Wow! That's 12 mph if they never stop.

Or 15 mph if they fly 20 hours a day.

Edit: for the rest of the world, that's 20.8 km/h without stopping, 25 km/h if they stop for four hours.