Greetings, readers. Today we consider those feathery movers and shakers—birds—and how they migrate. Here’s an article about that by my friend, author and naturalist, Peggy Sias Lantz (click her name to visit her website).
Migration
by Peggy Lantz
“So you want to fly like a bird? Done!”
More than thirty years ago, I read a full-page ad in a glossy magazine that began like this. If I remember correctly, it was an invitation to join The Nature Conservancy. I have been a member ever since. And I’ve been a member of the Audubon Society since I was a child.
Then the ad went on to describe a bird on its twice-annual migration journey. The journey is dangerous, exhausting, and non-stop, and often fatal.
No easy trip
The birds that migrate through Florida have to cross 600 miles of the Gulf of Mexico to winter in Central or South America in the fall, and they fly back again in the spring to their breeding and nesting sites in New England, the Midwest, or Canada.
Don [Peggy’s late husband] and I once went on an Audubon trip to the Dry Tortugas, off Key West, during spring migration. The birds arrived so exhausted and dehydrated that some would land and die where they stood, without enough strength left to get a drink of water. We saw this happen to an egret. Songbirds were easy prey for waiting hawks, unable to dodge their talons.
In their flight across the Gulf, there is nowhere to rest, though occasionally a passing ship will find a weary bird on its deck. Headwinds may push against them, making the trip longer than their strength can hold out. Storms can drive them off course or into the waves where they drown. They may lose half their body weight on the journey.
And when they arrive over land, lights at night on buildings and towers confuse them, causing them to fly into them. The pond where they drank may have been filled in, or the trees where they rested may have been cut down, or the plants where they found seeds or insects have been plowed under or paved over.
Still want to fly like a bird?
Many birds that nest in northeast U.S. migrate to Florida in the fall and spend the winter here – species of ducks, loons, hawks, wrens, warblers, flycatchers, and many other songbirds.
How to help migrating birds
You can help them on their migration journey or provide for them while they stay in your yard. Turn off your outdoor lights at night. Remove the plants that come from other continents that no self-respecting insect would feed on, and replace them with plants native to Florida, central Florida, even Oakland and Winter Garden. If you have a bird feeder or bird bath, keep it clean and filled.
Now is the time to be looking for them with your binoculars. Beg, borrow, steal, or even buy a bird book, such as Florida’s Birds by David Maehr and Herb Kale. Visit the bird station at Oakland Nature Preserve. Join the Audubon Society or the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Attend an Orange Audubon Society monthly meeting at Leu Gardens. Visit the Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland. Put the Merlin app on your cell phone; it identifies birds by sound or photo. Participate in the Christmas Bird Count. Learn.
Most of all, care. The birds need you. Florida needs them. I need them. Don’t you?
—END—
Thanks for reading!
Your writer on the wing,
Charlene
