Migration of Birds (1950)

Appendix Ii--Bird Banding 92

Bibliography 94

Index 99

MIGRATION of BIRDS

When the birds that have nested in our dooryards and those that have frequented the neighboring woods, hills, and marshes leave us in the fall, the question naturally comes to mind: Where do they go? This, however, is only one small part of the question as we also wonder: Will the same ones return next spring to their former haunts? What dangers will they face on their round-trip flight and while in their winter homes? These and other questions on the migratory habits of most species of Northern Hemisphere birds puzzle all who are interested in them, whether it be the farmer who profits by their tireless warfare against the weed and insect pests of his crops, the bird student who enjoys an abundance and variety of feathered inhabitants about him, or the hunter who wants a continuation from year to year of the sport of wildfowling. Lack of information on the subject may mean the loss of an important resource by unconsciously letting it slip from us, as ignorance might be responsible for inadequate legal protection for such species as might urgently need it. More general knowledge on the subject will aid in the perpetuation of the various migrants, the seasonal habitats of some of which are in grave danger from man's utilization, sometimes unwisely, of the marsh, water and other areas that were formerly homes for birds.

The migrations of birds were probably among the first natural phenomena to attract the attention and intrigue the imagination of man. Recorded observations on the subject date back nearly 3,000 years, to the times of Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus, Aristotle, and others. In the Bible there are several references to the periodic movements of birds, as in the Book of Job (39:26), where the inquiry is made: "Doth the hawk fly by Thy wisdom and stretch her wings toward the south?" Jeremiah (8:7), wrote: "The stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed time; and the turtle , and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming." And the flight of quail that saved the Israelites from starvation in their wanderings in the wilderness of Sinai is now recognized as a vast movement of migratory quail between their breeding grounds and their winter home in Africa.

Throughout the ages the return flights of migratory birds have been important as a source of food after a lean winter and as the harbinger of a change in season. The arrival of certain species has been heralded with appropriate ceremonies in many lands, and among the Eskimos and other tribes the phenomenon to this day is the accepted sign of the imminence of spring and of warmer weather. The pioneer fur traders in Alaska and Canada offered rewards to the Indian or Eskimo who saw the first goose of the spring, and all joined in jubilant welcome to the newcomer.

As the North American Continent became more thickly settled, the large flocks of ducks and geese that always had been hunted for food became objects of the enthusiastic attention of an increasing army of sportsmen. Most of the nongame species were found to be valuable also as allies of the farmer in his never-ending warfare against weed and insect pests. The need for laws protecting the valuable game and nongame birds and for regulating the hunting of the diminishing game species followed as a natural course. In the management of this wildlife resource it has become obvious that continuous studies must be made of the food habits of the various species, their environmental needs, and their travels. Hence bird investigations are made by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the bureau charged by Congress under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act with the duty of protecting those species that in their yearly journeys pass back and forth between the United States and Canada, and between the United States and Mexico.

For more than half a century the Fish and Wildlife Service and its predecessor, the Biological Survey, have been collecting data on the interesting and important phenomenon of the migration of North American birds. The field men of the Service have gathered information concerning the distribution and seasonal movements of the different species in many extended areas, from the Arctic coast south to the pampas of Argentina. Supplementing these investigations is the work of hundreds of volunteer ornithologists and bird students throughout the United States and Canada, who each year, spring and fall, forward to the Service reports on the migrations as observed in their respective localities. Added to the mass of data thus assembled is a rapidly growing recovery file of marked individuals. These data, together with other carded records gleaned by the Fish and Wildlife Service from a vast literature, constitute a series of files that now contain well over 3,000,000 entries, easily the greatest existing accumulation of information pertaining to the distribution and movements of North American birds. Not only do the facts thus assembled form the basis of regulatory action for the protection of the birds, but they also make it possible to publish scientific accounts of the ranges and migrations of the different species. They furnish the basis of this bulletin.

The several important bird-protective measures adopted by State and Federal Governments, particularly those having as their objectives the conservation of the migratory song, insectivorous, and game species, can be effective only if they have intelligent public support. To increase such support, information must be more generally available on that little understood but universally fascinating subject of bird migration. A brief presentation of facts on the migratory habits of the birds scientifically gathered by the Fish and Wildlife Service over many years, will be helpful to bird-study classes, to conservation organizations, and to farmers and others individually interested in the welfare of the birds.

In addition to his original investigations in the field and in the files of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the author has made free use of the writings of many other students of the subject. To all of these grateful acknowledgment is made.

The Mystery of Migration

Of observers whose writings are extant, Aristotle, naturalist and philosopher of ancient Greece, was one of the first to discuss the subject of bird migration. He noted that cranes traveled from the steppes of Scythia to the marshes at the headwaters of the Nile, and that pelicans, geese, swans, rails, doves, and many other birds likewise passed to warmer regions to spend the winter. In the earliest years of the Christian era, the elder Pliny, Roman naturalist, in his Historia Naturalis, repeated much of what Aristotle had said on migration and added comments of his own concerning the movements of the European blackbird, the starling, and the thrushes.

In spite of the keen perception shown in some of his statements Aristotle also must be credited with the origin of some superstitious beliefs that persisted for several centuries. One of these, that of hibernation, became so firmly rooted that Dr. Elliott Coues (1878), one of America's greatest ornithologists, listed the titles of no less than 182 papers dealing with the hibernation of swallows. The hibernation theory accounted for the autumnal disappearance of certain species of birds by having them pass into a torpid state and so remain during the cold season, hidden in hollow trees, caves, or in the mud of marshes. Aristotle ascribed hibernation not only to swallows, but also to storks, kites, doves, and others. Some early naturalists wrote fantastic accounts of the flocks of swallows that allegedly were seen congregating in the marshes until their accumulated weight bent into the water the reeds on which they clung and thus submerged the birds. It was even recorded that when fishermen in northern waters drew up their nets they sometimes had a mixed "catch" of fish and hibernating swallows. Clarke (1912) quotes Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala, who in 1555 published a work entitled "Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalis et Natura," wherein he observed that if swallows so caught were taken into a warm room they would soon begin to fly about but would live only a short time.

Publications referred to parenthetically by date are listed in the Bibliography, p. 94.

The hibernation theory survived for more than 2,000 years and, until the winter home of the chimney swift was discovered in 1944 through the recovery of banded individuals, it was occasionally repeated by credulous persons to account for the sudden disappearance of the immense flocks that each autumn gather in southern Georgia and northern Florida. Although the winter range is still unknown in fullest detail, Lincoln (1944b) has shown that some of these birds spend the winter season in northeastern Peru.

Although the idea that hibernation is a regular feature of the life cycle of birds is no longer accepted for any species, recognition must be accorded the observations of Edmund C. Jaeger of Riverside College, Riverside, Calif. (1949). Earlier (1948), he had given a brief account of the behavior of a poor-will found during the winter of 1946-47 in the Chukawalla Mountains of the Colorado Desert, Calif., and which was in a state of profound torpidity.

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