Chapter XI: The Flight of the Bird

_How do Birds find their Way?_[1]

(Told at Foxes Corners School)

“I was telling Grand’ther about how far away the birds go in the winter, and how they fly against the lighthouses and get killed,” said Tommy Todd, “and he said I couldn’t tell him anything about their going away and coming back, ’cause he’d seen that going on, boy and man, these seventy years. Grand’ther knows how the same kind of birds come back to the place every spring, ’cause he says there were Phœbe Birds had a nest on the end beam of the cowshed over where the last cow stands,—way back when he was learning to milk. Then when that old shed blew down, and they built a new one like it, back the birds came, and they are coming yet; first nest over Black Bess, and second nest way out over the box-pen where the little calves live.

“What Grand’ther wants to know is how they find the way to go so far, and how they know where to stop and find something to eat, and if they get hungry, ’cause he says nobody seems to know just what they do between times, and what people do tell seems like Jack-and-the-Beanstalk fairy-stories, and he said maybe you had some book that told about it so’s you could explain.”

Gray Lady smiled in a half-puzzled way, as Tommy spoke, for the questions that the children asked often gave her as much cause for study and wonder as the stories that she told them. She was finding out that there were three or four members of the Kind Hearts’ Club who had been seeing correctly and trying to think out things for themselves before they had a chance to ask questions, or had any books to consult.

“Your grandfather’s question cannot be answered in a few words,” she said, “neither is there any one book that tells everything about these wonderful journeys, because, as yet, not the very wisest of the Wise Men know it all, though they wait and watch, and every spring and fall many of them are scattered through the country upon the course of the flying birds to watch them as they pass.

“All the information that they collect is printed and kept as evidence of what is known, a little here and a little there, until we hope some day that the history will be complete, when it will be one of the most wonderful stories in the world, for even the little we know sounds like a fairy-tale.

“Of course,” continued Gray Lady, “I know very little from my own sight, but I will tell you what I have learned of the Wise Men, who believe it to be the truth. I had intended telling you about Owls and Hawks to-day, as I promised you last week, when we saw the Screech Owl up in the orchard, but that story can wait until the next time you visit Birdland, for the Owls are still about; there are pictures of them in the library, and others that are stuffed and mounted in the glass case in the hall.

“All that we need, or that can help us with the story of the bird on its travels, is that large map of North and South America, for this will be a geography, as well as a bird, lesson.

(A fine map of the western hemisphere having been the first thing that Gray Lady had given Miss Wilde for the use of the school at Foxes Corners, the little old one being out of date and indistinct.)

“Clary, you may take charge of the pointer to-day and sit here by me, for this will be a rather long lesson, and you will need help with the binding of your iron-holder, for I’m afraid if you draw the stitches so very tight it will pucker and not lie flat and smooth like the model that Ann Hughes made.

“And what work has Jacob given you boys for your penknives to do?”

“Wooden spoons out of white wood,” answered Dave, “big strong ones such as’ll beat up cake and apple-sauce, and, when they’re shaped, we are to smooth them down fine with sandpaper. I’m going to give mine to my mother; she broke hers yesterday, the handle snapped right in two. She says the bought spoons are sawn out crossgrain, any which way. There was an old man who used to come down from the charcoal camp with wooden spoons and butter-scoops and hickory baskets, and he sold lots of ’em all through the town, but he died last winter.”

“Then surely wooden spoons and butter-scoops will be very good things for the Kind Hearts’ Club to make for its Christmas sale, and we shall be interfering with nobody, for that is one of the things that we must remember when we are working for charity, not to make articles for sale that shall interfere with others who make them to get an honest living, for that sort of thing is a species of robbery in disguise.

* * * * *

_The Travels of Birds_

“What becomes of the birds that are with us in summer? Where and how do they spend the winter? By what roadways do they travel to their winter haunts? Do they prefer to journey by land or by water, and how do they find the way?

“We need not think that we, or anybody else of our day, are the first to ask these questions, for it is many hundreds of years since they first began to puzzle thinking people. At first, lacking any real knowledge of the simplest facts of nature, and not having as yet trained the eye to correct seeing, the people did as the ignorant do to this day,—they imagined fabulous reasons. The more impossible and wonderful or unnatural, the better, for it takes a trained mind oftentimes to realize that the most natural way is the best, and that the simplest way is the most natural.

“It was in these far-back times that the foolish idea was started that the Swallows dived into the mud and there spent the winter, like the frogs.

“Another stranger idea was that small birds crossed large bodies of water as passengers on the backs of large birds, such as Cranes, Ducks, and Geese, for people did not know enough of the structure of birds to realize that the machinery of the tiny Humming-bird is as fit for flying long distances as that of the biggest birds that grow. Ideas like this have been believed until a comparatively short time ago, and it is only within the last fifty years that there has been much real progress toward the truth of it all. And this is the way it has been brought about. In our country the band of Wise Men at Washington, forming the United States Biological Survey, have for twenty years been gathering facts about the migration of birds. This body has sent out naturalists to travel through the North American continent from Guatemala to the Arctic Circle, to meet with other scientific men on their way, and keep careful notes of what they see, so that reports are had in the spring and fall each year from hundreds of observers.

“These reports give the date upon which each particular kind (or species, as they call it) of bird is seen, when it becomes plenty, and when it moves on again. The lighthouse keepers also give much information by noting the times at which they find the birds that are dashed to death against the lanterns in the tower. In short, the Wise Men have more material at hand than ever before from which to shape the story that day by day increases in wonder.

_Causes of the Migrations_

“It is more than two thousand years since the wonders of bird travel have been noted; and while the distances and routes of travel are better known, we cannot yet give a positive answer to the question, ‘Why do birds migrate?’”

“Please, Gray Lady,” said Sarah Barnes, “I thought you said it was because in fall the insect food begins to freeze and give out, and they go south after it and in spring they want to go back home.”

“Yes, Sarah, that is one of the reasons, and yet birds start off oftentimes when food is still plenty, and every naturalist knows of the rush of the water-fowl northward so early every spring that they are often turned back by storms and have to retrace their flight, and they have all seen that Robins, Bluebirds, and Swallows, following too closely in the wake of the water-fowl, sometimes lose hundreds out of their flocks by cold and starvation.

“If the fall journey is caused by lack of food, why does it begin when food is most plenty? At some of the Florida lighthouses the Wise Men have seen that the southward trip with some birds begins between the first and middle of July, at the time when the crop of insects and ripe seeds and berries is at its height. So the best answer that can be made is that ages ago, when the migrations began, they were connected with a food supply that changed more suddenly than at the present time, and that, even when the direct motive is lost, the habit remains fixed.”

“That’s it; that’s a bully reason!” cried Tommy Todd, excitedly. “They’ve got the notion that they’re going travelling just so often and they can’t calculate the time right and so they get ready too soon; likely they haven’t got very good heads for planning. That’s the reason, Pop says, that every fall, when Ma and Aunt Hannah go up to Kent to visit Grandma Tuck, they are all ready on the stoop by half-past seven, when there’s never been a train from here to there before ’leven. If they were birds, they’d probably fly off as soon as it was light, and get to Grandma’s for breakfast, when they’d written on a picture postal, with tea-cups and a cat on it, that she might expect them for supper.”

When the laugh at Tommy’s comparison had subsided, Gray Lady said, “Your idea is by no means a foolish one, and it may be that a boy like you, who watches and thinks, will some day piece the facts together that will finally settle the question.”

_How do Birds find their Way?_

“How do the birds find their way over the hundreds or thousands of miles between the winter and summer homes? Sight is probably the chief guide of those who fly by day, and it is known that these day travellers seldom make the long single flights that are so common with the birds that journey at night. Sight, undoubtedly, also guides them, to a large extent, in the night journeys, when the moon is bright. Migrating birds fly high, so that one can hardly hear their faint twittering. But if the sky is obscured and the clouds hang low, the flocks keep nearer to the earth, and their calls are more distinctly heard; while on very dark nights, the vibration of their wings can be heard close overhead.

“Notwithstanding this, something besides sight guides these travellers in the upper air. (Here is a route for you to trace on the map.) In Alaska, a few years ago, members of the Biological Survey on the Harriman expedition went by steamer from the island of Unalaska to Bogoslof Island, a distance of about sixty miles. A dense fog had shut out every object beyond a hundred yards. When the steamer was halfway across, flocks of Murres, returning to Bogoslof after long quests for food, began to break through the fog wall astern, fly side by side with the vessels, and disappear in the mists ahead. By chart and compass, the ship was heading straight for the island; but its course was no more exact than that taken by the birds. The power which carried them unerringly home over the ocean wastes, whatever its nature, may be called ‘a sense of direction.’ We recognize in ourselves the possession of some such sense, though imperfect and easily at fault. Doubtless a similar, but vastly more acute, sense enabled the Murres, flying from home and circling wide over the water, to keep in mind the direction of their nests and return to them without the aid of sight. It is probable that this faculty is exercised during migration.

“Reports from lighthouses in southern Florida show that birds leave Cuba on cloudy nights when they cannot possibly see the Florida shores, and safely reach their destination, provided no change occurs in the weather. But if meantime the wind changes or a storm arises to throw them out of their reckoning, they become bewildered, lose their way, and fly toward the lighthouse beacon. Unless killed by striking the lantern, they hover near or alight on the balcony, to continue their flight when morning breaks, or, the storm ceasing, a clear sky allows them once more to determine the proper course.

“Birds flying over the Gulf of Mexico to Louisiana, even if they ascended to the height of five miles, would still be unable to see a third of the way across. Nevertheless this trip is successfully made twice each year by countless thousands of the warblers of the Mississippi Valley.

“Probably there are many short zigzags from one favoured feeding-spot to another, but the general course between the summer and winter homes is as straight as the birds can find without missing the usual stopping-places.

_Accidents during Migration_

“Migration is a season full of peril for myriads of winged travellers, especially for those that cross large bodies of water. Some of the shore-birds, such as Plover and Curlew, which take long ocean voyages, can rest on the waves if overtaken by storms, but woe to the luckless warbler whose feathers once became water-soaked,—a grave in the ocean or a burial in the sand of the beach is the inevitable result. Nor are such accidents infrequent. A few years ago on Lake Michigan a storm during spring migration piled many birds along the shore.

“If such a disaster could occur on a lake less than a hundred miles wide, how much greater might it not be during a flight across the Gulf of Mexico. Such a catastrophe was once witnessed from the deck of a vessel, thirty miles off the mouth of the Mississippi River. Large numbers of migrating birds, mostly warblers, had accomplished nine-tenths of their long flight, and were nearing land, when they were caught by a ‘norther’ with which most of them were unable to contend, and, falling into the Gulf, were drowned by hundreds.

“Then, as I have told you before, birds are peculiarly liable to destruction by striking high objects. A new tower in a city kills many before the survivors learn to avoid it. The Washington Monument has caused the death of many little migrants; and though the number of its victims has decreased of late years, yet on a single morning in the spring of 1902 nearly 150 lifeless bodies were strewn around its base.

“Bright lights attract birds from great distances. While the torch in the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor was kept lighted, the sacrifice of life it caused was enormous, even reaching a maximum of 700 birds in a month. A flashing light frightens birds away, and a red light is avoided by them as if it were a danger signal, but a steady white light looming out of mist or darkness seems to act like a magnet and draws the wanderers to destruction. Coming from any direction, they veer around to the leeward side, and then, flying against the wind, dash themselves against the pitiless glass.

_Distance of Migration_

“The length of the migration journey varies enormously. Some birds do not migrate at all. Many a Cardinal, Carolina Wren, and Bob-white rounds out its whole contented life within ten miles of its birthplace. Other birds, for instance, the Pine Warbler and the Black-headed Grosbeak, do not venture in winter south of the breeding range, so that with them fall migration is only a withdrawal from the northern and a concentration in the southern part of the summer home—the Warbler in about a fourth and the Grosbeak in less than an eighth of the summer area.

“The next variation is illustrated by the Robin, which occurs as a species in the middle districts of the United States throughout the year, in Canada only in summer, and along the Gulf of Mexico only in winter. Probably no individual Robin is a continuous resident in any section; but the Robin that nests, let us say, in southern Missouri will spend the winter near the Gulf, while his hardy Canada-bred cousin will be the winter tenant of the abandoned summer home of the southern bird.

“Most migrants entirely change their abode twice a year, and some of them travel immense distances. Of the land-birds, the common eastern Night Hawk seems to deserve the first place among those whose winter homes are widely distant from their breeding-grounds. Alaska and Patagonia, separated by 115 degrees of latitude, are the extremes of the summer and winter homes of the bird, and each spring many a Night Hawk travels the 5000 miles that lie between. But some of the shore-birds are still more inveterate voyagers. These cover from 6000 to 8000 miles each way, and appear to make travelling their chief occupation.

_Routes of Migration_

“Birds often seem eccentric in choice of route, and many land-birds do not take the shortest line. The fifty species from New England that winter in South America, instead of making the direct trip over the Atlantic, involving a flight of 2000 miles, take a slightly longer route which follows the coast of Florida, and passes thence, by island or mainland, to South America. What would seem, at first sight, to be a natural and convenient migratory highway extends from Florida through the Bahamas or Cuba to Haiti, Porto Rico, and the Lesser Antilles, and thence to South America.

_The Bobolink Route_

“Chief among these dauntless voyagers is the Bobolink, fresh from despoiling the Carolina rice-fields, waxed fat from his gormandizing, and so surcharged with energy that the 500-mile flight to South America on the way to the waving pampas of southern Brazil seems a small hardship. Indeed, many Bobolinks appear to scorn the Jamaican resting-point and to compass in a single flight the 700 miles from Cuba to South America. With the Bobolink is an incongruous company of travelling companions—a Vireo, a King Bird, and a Night Hawk that summer in Florida; the queer Chuck-will’s-widow of the Gulf States; the two New England Cuckoos; the trim Alice’s Thrush from Quebec; the cosmopolitan Bank Swallow from frozen Labrador, and the Black-poll Warbler from far-off Alaska. But the Bobolinks so far outnumber all the rest of the motley crew that the passage across the Caribbean Sea from Cuba to South America may with propriety be called the ‘Bobolink route.’ Occasionally a mellow-voiced Wood Thrush joins the assemblage, or a green-gold Tanager, which will prepare in its winter home its next summer livery of flaming scarlet. But the ‘Bobolink route,’ as a whole, is not popular with other birds, and the many that traverse it are but a fraction of the thousands of North American birds that spend the winter holiday in South America.

* * * * *

“Have you patience to follow the history of the flight of one bird? The longest migration route is taken by some of the wading-birds, especially the American Golden Plover, the Eskimo Curlew, and the Turnstone. The journey of the Plover, in itself like a fable, is wonderful enough to be told in detail.

“In the first week of June, they arrive at their breeding-grounds in the bleak, wind-swept ‘barren grounds’ above the Arctic Circle, far beyond the tree line. Some even venture 1000 miles farther north (Greely found them at latitude 81 degrees). While the lakes are still ice-bound, they hurriedly fashion shabby little nests in the moss only a few inches above the frozen ground. By August, they have hastened to Labrador, where, in company with Curlews and Turnstones, they enjoy a feast. Growing over the rocks and treeless slopes of this inhospitable coast is a kind of heather, the crowberry, bearing in profusion a juicy black fruit. The extravagant fondness shown for the berry by the birds, among which the Curlew, owing to its greater numbers, is most conspicuous, causes it to be known to the natives as the ‘curlewberry.’ The whole body of the Curlew becomes so saturated with the dark-purple juice that birds whose flesh was still stained with the colour have been shot 1000 miles south of Labrador.

“After a few weeks of such feasting, the Plovers become excessively fat, and ready for their great flight. They have reared their young under the midnight sun, and now they seek the southern hemisphere. After gaining the coast of Nova Scotia, they strike straight out to sea, and take a direct course for the easternmost islands of the West Indies. Eighteen hundred miles of ocean waste lie between the last land of Nova Scotia and the first of the Antilles, and yet 600 more to the eastern mainland of South America, their objective point. The only land along the route is the Bermuda Islands, 800 miles from Nova Scotia. In fair weather, the birds fly past the Bermudas without stopping; indeed, they are often seen by vessels 400 miles or more east of these islands.

“When they sight the first land of the Antilles, the flocks often do not pause, but keep on to the larger islands and sometimes even to the mainland of South America. Sometimes a storm drives them off the main track, when they seek the nearest land, appearing not infrequently at Cape Cod and Long Island.

“A few short stops may be made in the main flight, for the Plover swims lightly, and easily, and has been seen resting on the surface of the ocean; and shore-birds have been found busily feeding 500 miles south of Bermuda and 1000 miles east of Florida, in the Atlantic, in that area known as the Sargasso Sea, where thousands of square miles of seaweed teem with marine life.

“Though feathered balls of fat when they leave Labrador and still plump when they pass the Bermudas, the Plovers alight lean and hungry in the Antilles. Only the first, though the hardest, half of the journey is over. How many days it has occupied may never be known. Most migrants either fly at night and rest in the day or vice versa, but the Plover flies both night and day.

“After a short stop of three or four weeks in the Antilles and on the north-eastern coast of South America, the flocks disappear, and later their arrival is noted at the same time in southern Brazil and the whole prairie region of Argentina and Patagonia. Here they remain from September to March (the summer of the southern hemisphere), free from the responsibilities of the northern summer they have left. The native birds of Argentina are at the time engrossed in family cares; but, _remember this well, no wayfarer from the north nests in the south; he has a second summer free from care!_

“After a six months’ vacation the Plovers resume the serious affairs of life and start back toward the Arctic zone, but not by the same course. Their full northward route is a problem still unsolved. They disappear from Argentina and shun the whole Atlantic coast from Brazil to Labrador. In March they appear in Guatemala and Texas; April finds their long lines trailing across the prairies of the Mississippi valleys; the first of May sees them crossing our northern boundary; and by the first week in June they reappear at their breeding-grounds in the frozen North. What a journey! Eight thousand miles of latitude separates the extremes of their course, and 3000 miles of longitude constitutes the shorter diameter, and all for the sake of spending ten weeks on an Arctic coast! Do you realize this endurance when you see birds passing that window?

* * * * *

“As to the fatigue of the bird from travel, this is now thought to be very slight, as bird flocks that have crossed great bodies of water do not stop to rest, but usually continue many miles inland. It is, undoubtedly, accident or illness that sometimes causes birds to stop for rest on the rigging of vessels or offshore islands.

_The Unknown_

“Interest in bird migration goes back to a far distant period. Marvellous tales of the spring and fall movements of birds were spun by early observers, yet hardly less incredible are the ascertained facts. Much remains to be learned, and it may be of interest to note a few of the mysteries which still occupy attention. Even the daily flight of a bird is a wonderful thing apart from the endurance required in the long migrations. Though the wings of birds are built on very much the same plan, few species use them in precisely the same manner; while on a windy day the wings assume a dozen different positions in as many seconds, and to watch the flight of a sea-bird, as it rises and trims itself to the wind and then shapes its course, is to be awe-struck by this mysterious power of flight.

“Snap shot pictures of birds on the wing will show you this better than many words. Some birds, like the Hawks and Eagles, can sustain themselves in the air for hours, sailing against the wind without any visible motion of the wings. Others fly both by swift beating and sailing, like the Terns in one of these pictures.

“In short, the differences are so great that the Wise Men can often identify a bird by the sharp outline of its shadow in flight.

“This power of flight has been a subject of wonder for many thousand years; we think and we speculate, but no one has yet learned the secret in its fulness.

“‘The way of an eagle in the air! This is too wonderful for me!’ is an expression of this feeling of mystery, recorded in the book of Proverbs. One thing seems quite certain, however—if man ever succeeds in conquering the air and sailing through it, it will not be by the power of any invention of his own, but because he has at least in some degree mastered the knowledge of the flight of the bird and adapted it to his own use.

“The Chimney Swift, that you all know as the Chimney Swallow, is one of the most abundant and best-known birds of the eastern part of the United States. With troops of fledglings, catching their winged prey as they go, and lodging by night in some tall chimney, the flocks drift slowly south, joining with other bands until, on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, they become an innumerable host. Then they disappear. Did they drop into the water and hibernate in the mud, as was believed of old, their obliteration could not be more complete. In the last week in March a joyful twittering far overhead announces their return to the Gulf coast, but the intervening five months is still the Swifts’ secret.

“The mouse-coloured Bank Swallows, that we saw here in flocks a few weeks ago, are almost cosmopolitan, and enliven even the shores of the Arctic Ocean with their graceful aerial evolutions. Those that nest in Labrador allow a scant two months for building a nest and raising a brood, and by the first of August are headed southward. Six weeks later they are swarming in the vicinity of Chesapeake Bay, and then they, too, pass out of the range of our knowledge. In April they appear in northern South America, moving north, but not a hint do they give of how they came there. The rest of the species, those that nest to the south or west, may be traced farther south, but they, too, fail to give any clew as to where they spend the five winter months.

“Which one of the Wise Men can tell us? No one. Look out the window now; there are two Night Hawks, first flying high and then dropping suddenly through the air. Is it not hard to realize that, while you are going to and fro every day between your homes and school, and by and by having to dig paths through the snow in order to get there, those two slender birds will have flown 5000 miles to find a new summer, and will be having a vacation absolutely free from family cares?”

-----

[1] Condensed and adapted from _Some New Facts about the Migration of Birds_, by Wells W. Cooke, United States Biological Survey.