Bob and Maggie Honig at the Moquah Barrens State Natural Area (photo courtesy of Bob Honig).
In this episode, we answer questions like “where do birds migrate to?” and “do birds migrate at a certain time of day?” and learn about things like a baby crane’s first migration and the River of Raptors with our bird migration expert Bob Honig!
Click the play button below to listen to the episode, or scroll past to see the transcription of the episode with some helpful images!
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Transcription
Hey and welcome to Questions Asked by Curious Kids or QuACK, a podcast made by Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance. This is a podcast where we gather questions about nature from kids to be answered with a local expert. My name is Mickenzee; I'm an educator and I'll be the host for this series. This episode I'll be interviewing Bob Honig, a member and volunteer at Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance. Today, he'll be answering questions all about bird migration. Okay, let's jump in with Bob!
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Mickenzee: Hey, Bob, and welcome to the show. Before we get started with the questions from the kids, can you tell us a little bit about your connection to Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance?
Bob: Well, I volunteer with the Bird Alliance in several ways: I am on the Bird Collision Corps monitoring collisions with buildings, I monitor American Kestrel nest boxes, and I give presentations and lead field trips. And usually I do all those activities with my wife, Maggie. It's a nice way for us to spend time together and do it for a good cause.
Mickenzee: That's so great and this episode is all about migration, specifically bird migration. Can you tell us about your connection to birds and maybe why you like them so much?
Bob: Well, I studied biology and ecology in grad school, and that got me out into the field. And I learned a lot from other people who knew a lot more than I did, spending time with them in the field. And birds, birds were my introduction into watching nature. I got hooked when I saw thousands of Canada geese fly into a marsh at sunset on the coast of New Jersey. I'd never seen anything like that before, and it was really thrilling. And I also like dragonflies especially, but I like to look at most anything in nature.
Mickenzee: Yeah, we're more than just bird lovers over at the Bird Alliance.
Bob: Absolutely.
Mickenzee: All of our questions today were submitted by the third graders at Lincoln Elementary School here in Madison. Our first question today is where do birds migrate to?
Arctic Tern in shock over how many miles it migrates! (photo by USFWS).
Bob: Well, birds migrate to where there is abundant food and also where there are places for them to nest. So what people are most familiar with is migration from one region to another. In particular, to have a lot of food to feed their young. For example, the birds we see here in Wisconsin in the summer are here to nest because there are lots of insects and seeds and berries to eat and to feed their young. Many of these birds migrate south in autumn to the southern United States, or even farther to the tropics for the winter, and then they migrate back again in the spring. And many of the birds we see here in the winter migrate north to nest in the summer. And a fun fact the longest known migration of any animal is that of the Arctic Tern, a type of bird closely related to gulls. The Arctic Tern can migrate about 25,000 miles each year as it moves from near the North Pole to near the South Pole in Antarctica and back.
Mickenzee: That's really impressive.
Dark-eyed Junco formerly called the Northern Junco (photo by Kelly Colgan Azar).
Bob: Yeah, and some birds don't change regions at all. But move down from high in the mountains to down lower and back. For example, weather near the peaks of the Rocky Mountains can get very extreme and unfavorable in winter. So birds that nest way up there will move to lowlands in the winter. One bird example of this is the Yellow-eyed Junco, a bird that's found in the southwestern United States and it's a very close relative to a bird called the Northern Junco, they're types of sparrows and the Northern Junco, I mean, excuse me, the Dark-eyed Junco is a type of sparrow that's very common in the Madison area in the winter and moves north in the summer.
Mickenzee: Definitely. Yeah. So it's not just moving distance, but also altitude.
Bob: Exactly.
Mickenzee: All right. And this question asker wonders, do birds time their flights to a certain time of day? Maybe like sunrise?
This Broad-winged Hawk kettle is just a fraction of the number of hawks one might see in the River of Hawks (photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren).
Bob: Yes they can. And different times for different birds. Most birds migrate at night. This is when the air is generally calmer and the cooler temperatures help keep the birds from overheating, and it reduces chances that they will become prey for hawks and other daytime predators. Some of the birds that migrate at night, for example, are flycatchers, thrushes, warblers, and sparrows. But some birds migrate during the day. Among these are birds that can soar on updrafts caused by rising warm air or breezes deflected upward by ridges and mountains. That saves energy for birds like hawks and cranes. Hawks also are sometimes seen migrating by hundreds or thousands even. They often wait until late morning, when the air is warmed and updrafts start before they start to migrate. There's a place in Mexico called the River of Raptors, where you might see over 200,000 migrating hawks in a single day.
Mickenzee: Woah. That's a lot of hawks.
Bob: That's a lot of hawk over a course of one migration season. Millions.
Mickenzee: Yeah. Wow. That's amazing.
Blue Jays queuing up (photoby Audrey R Hoff).
Bob: And then there's some birds we don't normally think of as migrating, but they actually migrate in large numbers. For example, Blue Jays. I wasn't aware they migrated much at all, but they migrate out of the northern part of their nesting range in autumn. On September 10th, 2023, over 14,000 Blue Jays were counted migrating past Hawk Ridge Reserve in Duluth, Minnesota. I was never aware that they moved in numbers like that before a year or two ago.
Mickenzee: Yeah, you see them all year round, but I guess maybe those are different Blue Jays you're seeing.
Bob: Yep. Exactly.
Mickenzee: All right. Our next question is do birds migrate when it's stormy?
Bob: Well, migrating birds tend to avoid stormy weather. Strong headwinds or rain or snow can force flying birds to expend a lot more energy, so they want to avoid that. And they'll try to take advantage of favorable conditions, like good weather and winds that are blowing them in the direction they want to go. But if birds are caught unaware and caught in a severe storm that they can't avoid, some may not survive and others can be blown far off course and get into places where they aren't usually found.
Mickenzee: Yeah. That reminds me of the flamingos that we saw in Milwaukee not very long ago.
Bob: Yes. Very likely storm storms had something to do with that.
Mickenzee: Yeah. Okay. So our next question is, do birds migrate with their families and babies?
Bob: Most do not. In fact, for some types of birds, males, females and youngsters all migrate at different times, but some do migrate in family groups. For example, Sandhill Crane youngsters stay with their parents for 9 to 10 months, including during their first fall migration. They usually separate from their parents during their first spring migration back north. It's similar with Whooping Cranes.
Flock of cranes in V-formation (photo via Pixabay).
Mickenzee: Okay. I didn't know that, that they go in different waves of the different groups. Okay. And now this student noticed that geese and some other birds form in a "V" when flying in a group. And they would like to know why do they do that?
Bob: Well, they fly in a V-formation to reduce the energy they expend while flying. The motion of the birds wings creates an upward movement of air during part of the wing beat, and the birds that follow behind will time their flapping to take advantage of that, and they switch which bird is in the lead so the extra effort isn't on a single bird all the time.
Mickenzee: Oh, okay. Cool. So it's ways to save energy and just like some other adaptations that we talk about.
Bob: Yep.
Mickenzee: Okay. I feel like I learned so much today about migration. Thank you to the Lincoln third graders for submitting your questions. And thank you, Bob, for coming on to teach us.
Bob: It's my pleasure.
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If you are interested in learning more about bird migration or getting involved with our programs, please head to our website at swibirds.org and check out the free lessons, games and activities like migration obstacle course, as well as the event calendar and citizen science program so you could sign up for things like Bird Collision Corps, which I'll be talking about with Brenna Marsicek in the next episode.
If you have a big nature question that you'd like to have answered, please have a grown up or teacher submit your question to info@swibirds.org with the title Questions for QuACK. Make sure to include your grade in the school that you attend so I can give you a shout out. Thanks for tuning in and I hope you join us next time on QuACK!
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Audio Editing and Transcription by Mickenzee Okon
Logo design by Carolyn Byers and Kaitlin Svabek
Music: “The Forest and the Trees” by Kevin MacLeod
