birdsoup

Birders marvel at the mysteries of migration.  How can tiny creatures weighing a few ounces survive a southbound journey of hundreds or thousands of mile only to return north again in a few months?  More amazingly, they return to the same location they left in the fall.

I knew a bird bander in Chicago who captured the same bird in his backyard 5 years in a row, a bird that winters in South America.  It flew thousands of miles each year and returned each to his yard.  No maps, no GPS, no traffic reports.  How did it find its way?  I get lost just driving around the block.

Even more amazing to me is a bird’s a sense of time without the use of a calendar.  When I lived in Huntington Long Island a Black and White Warbler showed up in my yard every year on May 5^th exactly.  Sometimes it hung around for a day or two but I never saw one before the 5^th of May.  And I never saw one after the 7^th of May.