5 October 2023
Some birds are champion fliers, staying airborne for days or months at a time. Scientists questioned if birds sleep in flight and proved that they do in a 2016 learn about of serious frigatebirds, discovering that the birds both “sleep with one part in their brains energetic, or with each hemispheres close down on the identical time.” Learn extra on this antique article, Asleep in Flight.
Blackpoll warblers (Setophaga striata) also are champion fliers creating a continuous fall migration over the Atlantic Ocean of one,900 miles in 72 to 88 hours. Touring at 27 mph, they release from the east coast between Nova Scotia and South Carolina and fly to their most effective stopover in Puerto Rico or Hispaniola (Haiti & Dominican Republic), then directly to northern South The us.
The blackpoll’s transoceanic trail was once confirmed in a 2015 learn about via Invoice DeLuca and the Vermont Heart for Ecostudies. VCE writes:
Invoice DeLuca (Northeast Local weather Science Heart) and VCE solved this nice modern day avian thriller. The usage of light-level geolocators connected to Blackpoll Warblers in Vermont and Nova Scotia, DeLuca and co-workers documented the longest distance continuous overwater flights ever recorded for a migratory songbird. All the way through October, Blackpoll Warblers start up a ~3-day continuous transoceanic flight of ~2500 km from the north Atlantic Coast to Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Radar knowledge display migrating songbirds fly at 2,600 to twenty,000 toes whilst making this adventure. After a couple of weeks, they fly onto Columbia or Venezuela the place they overwinter. Their spring migration path takes them over Cuba to Florida, the place they adventure up the japanese US seaboard to succeed in their breeding grounds in overdue Might.
Realize on this eBird abundance map for the week of two Nov that blackpolls are:
- bunched up at the East Coast from Massachusetts to North Carolina
- at a stopover on Puerto Rico and
- early migrants have already arrived in South The us.
Watch them right through the 12 months on this eBird abundance animation.
In fact I questioned if blackpoll warblers sleep in flight all the way through their 3 day transoceanic travel, however we received’t to find out any time quickly. Blackpolls are method too small to put on the sleep tracking tools used at the nice frigatebird.
(photograph from Wikimedia Commons, maps from eBird Weekly Abundance; click on at the captions to peer the originals)