{"id":61,"date":"2008-11-23T18:22:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-23T22:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/2008\/11\/23\/61\/"},"modified":"2008-11-23T18:22:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-23T22:22:00","slug":"61","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/2008\/11\/23\/61\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

For the Birds: Arctic Tern Migration; The Life of the Skies Review<\/span><\/p>\n

The fall bird migration is picking up momentum. Swallows began massing in large flocks and heading southward by the middle of August. Shorebirds that nest on the arctic tundra are building in numbers along Maine mudflats, the first having arrived on their southward passage in July. Black Scoters, Surf Scoters, and Red-necked Grebes have already appeared along coastal waters. Much of the warbler migration will occur in September and sparrow migration in October.<\/p>\n

The fall migration is a gloriously protracted spectacle. Without the need to claim a breeding territory or find a mate like spring migrants, fall migrants show less urgency.<\/p>\n

The number of birds that participate in the fall migration in North America is staggering. I have seen one estimate of five billion birds moving southward on our continent.<\/p>\n

Some migrations are relatively modest undertakings. For instance, the Common Loons that nest on our lakes need only migrate eastward to the ocean to spend the winter. Ruby-crowned Kinglets may only migrate as far south as Pennsylvania or eastern New York for the winter.<\/p>\n

With the Olympics still fresh in our minds, considering the most impressive bird migrants seems appropriate. In the past few years, I have written about two of the most amazing species of migrating birds. Both Semipalmated Sandpipers and Blackpoll Warblers fatten along coastal portions of northeastern North America and then embark on a non-stop flight over the ocean of some 2000 miles to get to their South American wintering grounds.<\/p>\n

Once these birds get south of the 30th parallel, the northeast trade winds help to propel them to the northeastern shores of South America but their migration is still stunning. These birds cannot stop to rest on the water and cannot feed along the way. They have to pack all the fat they will need to fuel their flight before they depart. These migrations require three to four days of non-stop flight.<\/p>\n

But, the North American species that covers the most distance in migration is the Arctic Tern. Members of this species breed in the Western Hemisphere from Greenland at a latitude of 84 degrees south to Cape Cod. Their fall migration takes them to the edge of the pack ice in Antarctica. That requires a flight each fall of 12,000 miles!<\/p>\n

Unlike the Semipalmated Sandpipers and Blackpoll Warblers, Arctic Terns can feed along their way since they dive for fish from the air. They can also rest on the surface of the ocean. However, 12,000 miles is an awfully long distance to cover in just a couple of months. The advantages are significant; Arctic Terns experience longer periods of daylight than any other species of bird in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

When the Antarctic summer starts to wane in March, the Arctic Terns retrace their migration back to their northern breeding grounds. The record life span for an Arctic Tern is 34 years. The wings of this bird propelled the bird over 800 million miles in its lifetime. That feat is worthy of a gold medal.<\/p>\n

The Life of the Skies<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve just finished reading The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature by Jonathan Rosen and enthusiastically recommend the book.<\/p>\n

Describing the book is not easy; perhaps, the best way to describe the book is a meditation on birding at the beginning of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

Rosen is a novelist and editor of Nextbooks who took up birding as an adult. Central Park, near his New York City apartment, is one of his favorite haunts although he has traveled broadly to pursue his birding passion.<\/p>\n

Rosen interweaves several birding narratives in his book including ones on his efforts to see an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, visiting threatened birding hotspots in Israel along with historical accounts of John James Audubon, Henry David Thoreau and Alfred Russel Wallace, a contemporary of Charles Darwin who independently arrived at the concept of natural selection.<\/p>\n

References to poetry appear often throughout the various chapters including poems by Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and Wallace Stevens. He also frequently quotes the writing of Edward O. Wilson, the Harvard professor who is one of the most articulate defenders of the need to conserve the diversity of life on earth.<\/p>\n

I found Rosen\u2019s analysis of Robert Frost\u2019s poem, The Ovenbird, to be particularly moving. Written around 1910, this poem is a lament for nature that is lost but still expressing a thread of hope for conservation.<\/p>\n

The Life of the Skies explores the relationship between wild birds and humans and the scientific, spiritual and emotional ways that birding is important for humans. I thoroughly enjoyed this provocative book.<\/p>\n

[Originally published on September 6, 2008]<\/p>\n\n

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For the Birds: Arctic Tern Migration; The Life of the Skies Review The fall bird migration is picking up momentum. Swallows began massing in large flocks and heading southward by the middle of August. Shorebirds that nest on the arctic tundra are building in numbers along Maine mudflats, the first having arrived on their southward […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}