Stay Curious: Birds, Bird, Birds
Somewhat useless (but seriously interesting!) facts about birds.
At the height of the pandemic, I started more seriously watching birds. The hobby dovetailed with my picking up my camera again. During that time, birding proved an exquisite way to stay centered. Now, I regularly check in with resources I found then, like the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and their bird migration forecast.
This resource also does live migration maps which show the night of April 6, 2024, some 123.7 million birds were on the move in the early morning hours. Wow!
Speaking of migration, I got curious about the longest migration in the bird world and found a fascinating article on 7 seriously interesting bird journeys.
The whole feature is worth a read, but the longest migration belongs to the Arctic Tern, who travels roughly 55,293 miles pole to pole every year.
(For comparison, the average person drives roughly 14,263 miles per year.
As the robins come back North in more significant numbers, I’m reminded that I once wondered how these birds find worms when I was watching one hunt in a neighbor’s yard, assuming the head cock and sudden snagging of a snack suggested auditory cues.
Interestingly, I found a study that suggested robins were almost exclusively using sight!
But (isn’t there’s always a but), a subsequent study found they do in fact use auditory cues.
So, I’m splitting the difference. Eyes and ears for the win!
Hummingbirds are some of my favorite finds when I’m birding. I wait patiently for their arrival in the Spring, and when I first hear that zippy buzz of their wings, my heart soars.
The swordbilled hummingbird has the honor of being the bird with the longest beak (not hard to guess from the name). A South American bird native to the Andean region, the swordbilled hummingbird is one of the largest of all hummingbirds and is the only bird with a beak longer than it’s body!
(The video embedded in the article is worth watching, as is David Attenborough’s Hummingbird documentary.)
I love learning random facts about birds! It's so fascinating to discover how they navigate and survive in the world. The longest migration by the Arctic Tern is mind-blowing 🐦🌍 Excellent work, stellar writing!