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Stowaway Birds
Birds flying overseas sometimes land on boats to rest.
© Eric Heupel
When they migrate, tiny songbirds that spend most of their lives on land fly hundreds of miles over the ocean at a stretch – and they get tired. A recent study suggests that birds migrating over busy shipping routes in the Mediterranean Sea may use the decks of sea vessels as places to catch their breath when the weather turns bad.
BirdNote®
Stowaway Birds
Written by Conor Gearin
This is BirdNote.
[Rolling waves]
When they migrate, tiny songbirds that spend most of their lives on land fly hundreds of miles over the ocean at a stretch – and they get tired. That’s why the first stretch of coast along a migration route often has thousands of exhausted birds landing and taking a break.
[Common Redstart song]
There are also stories about ships at sea hosting worn-out migratory birds, but for the most part scientists saw those as rare events. However, a new study suggests it could be more common than once thought.
[Common Redstart song]
A group of oceanographers spent a few weeks in the Mediterranean Sea and noticed something unusual. Nearly every day that summer, more than one bird would land on their boat and spend a few minutes or a few hours aboard before flying away. And they weren’t just seabirds like gulls. They were landbirds that don’t frequent the high seas – apparently catching their breath on the boat, and then resuming their epic journeys.
[Great Reed Warbler song]
The researchers think that there are now enough ships in the busy Mediterranean trade routes that some birds might use them as stopover sites when the weather turns bad. Like any expert traveler, birds know how to use their resources to make it to their destination.
[Great Reed Warbler song]
For BirdNote, I’m Ariana Remmel.
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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Common Redstart ML36210 recorded by Arnoud B. van den Berg, and Great Reed Warbler ML203891051 recorded by Theodosis Mamais.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote July 2023
Narrator: Ariana Remmel
ID# ship-01-2023-07-28 ship-01
Reference:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ibi.13103
Conor Gearin
Writer
