Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Nature is Amazing

Tiny songbird northern wheatear traverses the world
"Miniature tracking devices have revealed the epic 30,000km (18,640 miles) migration of the diminutive northern wheatear.

The birds, which weigh just 25g (0.8oz), travel from sub-Saharan Africa to their Arctic breeding grounds.

"Scaled for body size," the scientists report, "this is the one of the longest round-trip migratory journeys of any bird in the world.""
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"The species is of particular interest to scientists, because it has one of the largest ranges of any songbird in the world; with breeding grounds in the eastern Canadian Arctic, across Greenland, Eurasia and into Alaska."
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""When we see them, they're in the middle of a journey they do twice every year. When you think of the challenges they must face, you wonder how on earth they do it.""
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""It seems that bird migration is limited by the size of the Earth. If the planet was larger, they would probably migrate even further.""
Yup. Science is never "settled".

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2 Comments:

Blogger Dave in Pa. said...

Equally amazing is the migration of the hummingbirds, from n. US and up to central Quebec in Canada all the way down to southern Mexico and Panama in Central America.

February 16, 2012 11:37 am  
Blogger Louise said...

I love humming birds. They're pretty rare around these parts, though.

February 16, 2012 1:40 pm  

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