Migratory songbirds typically fly under the cover of darkness, but the reason for their takeoff timing eluded researchers. Now, studies suggests the birds rely on the onset of dusk and the suggestion of fair skies ahead as signs for taking flight.
Published in the journal Movement Ecology, the studies used radio tracking devices and analyzed data from nearly 400 songbirds belonging to nine migratory species, including the yellow-rumped warbler, American redstart and Bicknell’s thrush.
Like most other migratory birds, these species migrate at night, probably in a bid to avoid predators, stay cool and set aside the daylight hours for foraging. Nevertheless, the exact reasons they start their flights when they do have long been subject to debate, with some scientists speculating that they time their departures to maximize night flight time or that they rely on celestial objects, such as visible stars, to cue flight.
“This is a really tight window, which suggests there is something important about this time of night,” said Nathan Cooper, a research ecologist for the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute and the papers’ first author, in a . “And we argue, this consistent departure time early in the night is about maximizing night flight time.”that migratory songbirds are good meteorologists. When the researchers looked at four of the species more closely, they found probability of departure was “related to changes in atmospheric pressure, almost completely regardless of species, season, or location.
Nevertheless, the weather is probably just one of many factors that prompt the birds to migrate, the researchers said, citing other
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