Migratory birds

Autumn is the big season of birds’ migration. At least 4,000 species of bird are regular migrants, which is about 40 percent of the total number of birds in the world. In North America, most bird species migrate to some extent, with more than 350 species travelling to the tropics each autumn.

Bar-headed geese are the highest-flying migratory birds, regularly reaching altitudes of up to five and a half miles above sea level while flying over the Himalayas in India. But the bird with the record for the highest altitude ever is the Ruppel’s griffon vulture, which collided with a plane at 37,000 feet (that’s seven miles!) in 1975 and was unfortunately sucked into its jet engine.

The northern wheatear travels up to 9,000 miles each way between the Arctic and Africa, giving it one of the largest ranges of any songbird. What makes this an amazing feat is that the tiny bird weighs less than an ounce, on average.

The bar-tailed godwit can fly for nearly 7,000 miles without stopping, making it the bird with the longest recorded non-stop flight. During the eight-day journey, the bird doesn’t stop for food or rest, demonstrating jaw-dropping endurance.

The award for fastest bird goes to the great snipe: It flies around 4,200 miles at speeds of up to 60mph! No other animal travels at such speeds for such long distances. Birds usually utilise winds blowing in the same direction they fly to help them go faster, but the snipe’s speeds don’t seem to be a result of that.

Published in Dawn, Young World, November 3rd, 2018