Birds' Migration Speed

The speed with which birds migrate varies with different species of birds and with the same species of bird in different parts of its journey. In general, birds travel faster during the latter I)art of their journey than during the first part. During the first part of March, the robin averages thirteen miles a day in migrating from southern Iowa to central Minnesota. From here its speed keeps increasing till it is traveling at the rate of seventy miles a day when it reaches Alaska by the middle of 1’1ay. The robins along the Atlantic Coast travel more slowly, at the rate of seventeen miles a day.

The average speed for all species of birds is twenty-three miles per day from New Orleans to southern Minnesota. From this locality some species travel northward at the rate of forty miles a day, and still farther north some at seventy-two miles, others at one hundred and sixteen miles, and five species, on arriving in Alaska, are traveling at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles a day.

The figures here given are for the species as a whole, not for individual birds. Usually birds migrate only a few hours during the night and then rest for a day or two, so that the average rate at which a species migrates is much less than for an individual bird. Our common small birds probably travel at the rate of about thirty miles an hour while migrating; ducks and geese may travel at the rate of forty-five miles an hour. Thus during a single night birds may travel from two hundred to four hundred miles.

Some birds migrate by day, some by night, and some both by day and night, but most are night travelers. The time selected by a bird for migration depends on its power of flight, its method of procuring food, and its disposition. The warbiers, vireos, and thrushes migrate by night, the swallows and hawks by day; while ducks, shore-birds, and sea-birds migrate both by day and night.

birds migration - Yahoo! News Search Results
birds migration - Yahoo! News Search Results

Whooping crane migration comes up short
While following an ultralight aircraft guiding them to Florida, young Maryland-bred birds get distracted in Alabama. They'll stay there for now. What's that saying about leading a horse to water? The latest effort to teach Maryland-bred whooping crane chicks to migrate to Florida for the winter has been called off because the endangered birds will no longer follow the ultralight aircraft leading ...
A Whooping Crane Migration Will Finish By Truck
The wayward birds could not be persuaded to follow a pilot flying an ultralight plane.
Green Blog: A Whooping Crane Migration Will Finish By Truck
The wayward birds could not be persuaded to follow a pilot flying an ultralight plane.
With whooping cranes unwilling to continue, annual migration ends in Alabama
By Barbara Behrendt, Times Staff Writer Thursday, February 2, 2012 CHASSAHOWITZKA ? The annual migration of ultralight-led whooping cranes had barely gotten off the ground in October when the problems began. First it was rain and wind that halted the birds in Wisconsin and across the Midwest. They would fly for a day, then have a week of downtime. In December, they finally reached northern ...
Grounded whooping cranes taking to the road
(Reuters) - A flock of young whooping cranes stuck in Alabama have lost interest in following an ultra-light plane leading them to a Florida winter habitat, so the rare birds' human coaches prepared on Friday to drive them to a nearby marsh. "Whether the birds have recognized this is as far as they need to go, we just don't know," said Liz Conde, a spokeswoman for Operation Migration, a public ...
Snowy owls soar south from Arctic in rare mass migration
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Bird enthusiasts are reporting rising numbers of snowy owls from the Arctic winging into the lower 48 states this winter in a mass southern migration that a leading owl researcher called "unbelievable." Thousands of the snow-white birds, which stand 2 feet tall with 5-foot wingspans, have been spotted from coast to coast, feeding in farmlands in Idaho, roosting on ...
Snowy Owls at Hancock Airport
Three birds here, part of a mass migration to the 'lower 48'
Migration of sandhill cranes is odd this winter
Sandhill crane migration is off schedule this year. Goose Pond property manager Brad Feaster counted 4,525 of them there on Tuesday. But were those birds southbound, northbound or ...
Worth the commute for migrating birds
QWhy do birds bother with migration all the way to South or Central America? Couldn't they winter in our southern states? ASome do go no farther than Missouri or Texas or Florida. But appropriate and adequate food supplies for many species require those long journeys.
Maryland-bred crane chicks to finish migration by truck
MD-bred Whoopers balk at following ultralight pilots to Florida What's that saying about leading a horse to water? The latest effort to teach Maryland-bred whooping crane chicks to migrate to Florida for the winter has been called off because the endangered birds will no longer follow the ultralight aircraft leading them.