Birds Crossing the Pacific

BirdNote^®

Birds Crossing the Pacific 

Written by Conor Gearin

Ariana Remmel: This is BirdNote. 

    [Open ocean waves]

Over 12,000 miles across at its widest point, you might think the Pacific Ocean is a barrier that even high-flying birds can’t cross. Think again – some species make the trip every year as part of their life cycle. 

    [Pacific Golden-Plover calls]

Ancient Polynesians knew long ago that birds cross the world’s largest ocean, and they used the movements of birds across the Pacific to help navigate during long sea voyages. Today, GPS tracking technology is revealing the incredible details of birds’ migrations over the water. 

After breeding in Alaska, shorebirds called Pacific Golden-Plovers fly all the way to the South Pacific — thousands of miles and several days’ flight away. 

    [Pacific Golden-Plover calls]

During the spring migration, Bar-tailed Godwits break up their trip from New Zealand to Alaska with a stop in the Yellow Sea off the coast of East Asia. But for their winter migration, they fly from North America to New Zealand without stopping. The longest recorded godwit journey is over 8,000 miles of uninterrupted flight.

    [Bar-tailed Godwit calls]

While there’s a lot we know about bird migration, exactly how these birds’ tiny bodies can sustain a week of flight without stopping is still a mystery. 

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. Pacific Golden-Plover ML105850 recorded by Geoffrey A. Keller, and Bar-tailed Godwit ML132119 recorded by Gerrit Vyn.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote August 2023
Narrator: Ariana Remmel

ID# migration-39-2023-08-18    migration-39

Reference:
https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/139/2/ukab086/6523130?
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pacific_Golden-Plover/overview