Short Stuff: Bird Migration

Published Feb 1, 2023, 10:00 AM

Where are all those birds flying anyway? How do they decide? When do they do it? All of these questions, and more, are answered in this week's ep.

Hey, welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. Jerry's here too, sitting him for Dave. So let's go with short stuff. Go go. This is something I'm surprised we haven't covered uh succinctly. We may have talked about it before here and there, but uh, the idea and I literally thought of this because I saw a flock of birds flying in that beautiful V pattern, A flock of seagulls. Oh I wish, because you know they run so far away, uh flying, And I was like, where are those guys going and what are they doing? And how do they know? It seems a little late, like why are you doing it now? And how do you know how to get there? It turns out we know the answers to some of these questions, and we're talking about bird migration. Uh. And this comes from our old friends at house stuff works dot com and Aliyah Hoyt, who did, I think a really great job writing a very succinct article on this cool topic. You should go check it out and read it there. But um, the notion about birds flying south for the winter, we should say right off the bat is like, that's just a very um sort of lazy way of putting it, because there are more than nine species of birds, and so you you're just saying birds flying south. You can't just say that about all birds because not all birds do fly south. No, Um, they don't. But the ones that do fly south are incredibly fascinating because, like you said, all those questions you have, we have a lot of answers to and um, the urge to migrate has a name even. That's one of the things I love about this chuck. There's some great terms hidden within. It is a great band name too, by the way, migratory restlessness, okay, photo period, those are okay, I'm gonna give them all away, okay, but the the the natural urge, UM, I would guess an unconscious urge too. If you're a bird, UM to migraine is called my gratory restlessness. And a lot of times they chalk it up to a change in the length of the day, which is called the photo period. That's right. I don't think we said about sevent of birds do migrate, and um, it's kind of like two buckets on why you would this is that first bucket, which is the daylight kind of giving them a queue and This means that there, um, the daylight is giving them the que they're not flying south because like it's getting a little bit chilly and the worms aren't quite what they used to be. But it's more like, hey, the the daylight is changing. That's a signal to me. That means we are known as band name obligate migrants. Okay, that's a good one. Pretty good. Yeah. That means that nature is commanding you to go migrate. You're this isn't any choice that you're making. This is just part of who you are. You migrate as a member of this bird species. Yes, and if you're an obligatet migrant, you probably opened up for the talking heads in the eighties, it would be my guess. So the good thing about obligate migrants is because it's so hardwired, their behavior is very predictable and easily studied. Um, Like, the the distance they travel is going to be basically the same year after year, generation after generation. When they go is going to be about the same. When they come back, it's going to be about the same. They're just extraordinarily dependable, right. Yeah. The ones that you can't count on at all are the facultative migrants. And I said it right, I didn't just add an extra syllable. Yeah, not nearly as good of a band name. For that reason. It's a little clunky. It is ted clunky. But these are the ones that migrate because they have to. They're really lazy as far as migration goes. Uh yeah, I mean they're the ones that take the cues around them. I kind of like them because they're not like, I'm just gonna do it because the daylight says so. They do it because food might be getting short, or it might be getting a little chilly for them or whatever. Uh um. And they basically know we can't stick around here, so let's hit the road, right or hit the hit the sky. They're kind of like the surfers of migrating birds. That's right, I like that. Should we break now? Oh yeah, jeez, alright, this is the shorty of my friend. Let's get back to it in a minute. Okay, Well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck it stuff you should know. All right, Okay, Chuck, let's get back to it. Answer how far do they migrate? Josh, what's the number how many miles. Well, if you ask Dr Andrew Farnsworth, Cornell Lab of ornithal g the metrics are all over the ballpark. Exclamation point. How stuff works. Talk to Dr Farnsworth and by the way, I can't say enough about how stuff works, chuck. So Dr Farnsworth says that depending on the birds, the species. I never thought about this, they may not really move anywhere as far as like a human would think of it. If they live like on a mountain, they are probably going to stay on the mountain. They just might change altitude, like you know, a few hundred meters this way, a few that way. Um, it makes a huge difference depending on the season. And that counts as migration. I love that one. Sure, they might stay in the same region or the same area, they might stay in the same state. Uh. And just you know, here in Georgia you could migrate just a little further south in the winter and have some very nice weather. Yeah, there's a pretty big difference between North Georgia and South Georgia weather wise. Yeah. Time or you could really get on your horse or your wing and your migration maybe like truly epic. Uh. And I guess we should talk about the most epics, the Arctic Arctic. That word the Arctic turn. Uh, they go from poll to poll, they go from the Antarctic to the Arctic. And that's the last time I have to say that. And that is a round trip of close to nineteen thousand miles or thirty thousand clicks? Can I say clicks? Sure? Okay, I didn't know what that was bad, because do you think of Vietnam. I don't know who else called it clicks. That's what I associated with, but I only heard it in Vietnam War movies. I didn't know if that was a bad thing. Anyway. Let's just call it kilometers. And that is the largest or rather the longest migration on planet Earth for anything, Yeah, any animal whatsoever. It's pretty pretty impressive. Um. I found one called the bar tailed Godwit. They hold the record for the longest NonStop flight of let's hear it. They fly NonStop over sixty hundred miles from Alaska to New Zealand without rest. Wow. Can you imagine? Yeah, that's a real reaction. By the way, we don't Sometimes we'll surprise each other with facts. Just sometimes we're being coy. Yeah you thought I was gonna bust out something about the Black Pole War war blurs didn't. No, No, I know you'd have something new for me. So that was that was a real reaction everyone. I'm not that good actor, that's true. Appreciate that set me up for that, Oh of course I did. Um. So the destination is kind of the last piece, like whether or not they migrate or not, how far they migrate, and now like where are they going to go? And this one is really interesting because they don't know for sure and they're trying to answer these questions. But there are a lot of super cool ideas about it. And one really cool sort of side note to this is some species of bird will go to the same place every single year, just like you're going on a vacation, and they'll have the same rest stops every year, just like you might on a vacation. Yeah, they'll actually learn landmarks to follow. And yeah, that's pretty cool because that means that if you see some Canadian geese in your backyard one year, you're probably going to see them the next year and so on and so forth. That's cool. Um. They also think that there's just a number of redundant systems that basically allow birds to navigate. UM. One of them apparently is learning how to navigate by the stars by constellations. Pretty impressive for a bird. UM. They also can use the sun to orient themselves. But then they have other um, they believe they have other onboard equipment, like an ability to see the Earth's electromagnetic field and orient themselves that way. Yeah, and you said, see like some birds may sense it, but they actually think that some birds there's a theory that some have a special pigment that literally lets them see it. Yeah, which is wild to think about. I would love to see that. I guarantee in the next fifty to seventy years, we're gonna have all sorts of ways to see like uv um, to see magnetic fields, just to see all sorts of just to experience the world in different ways that we aren't even thinking of right now. Guarantee it's going to be like a huge pathtime. Yeah. Or put on those special glasses and someone's clothes are off X ray glasses. Yeah, good idea, we're gonna make a million bucks off of that. Did you ever see the uh Ricky Gervais show extras? Uh, there's a great bit online that you should look up. Just a scene with Patrick Stewart, Sir Patrick Stewart, where he's Ricky Gervais goes in his trailer and this is a short one so I can tell the story real quick. Uh, Ricky Gervais goes in his trailer. He's an extra in movies and TV shows. That's the whole premise of the show. And he seeks some advice. He's like, I'm just an extra and like, you know, I'm trying to write screenplays and make my own way inswer Patrick's where it like really bonds with him. He's like, yeah, I'm I'm writing my own screenplays as well. And his big idea is that he is like, uh, has superpower is that he can make a woman's clothes just fallow right off their body. And Ricky Gervais keeps keeps it going like and you know, and then what happens and you know, and then like trying to get to some further plat point, but Patrick Stewart just keeps saying, and you know, there's a police officer. She comes up and I just look at her and her clothes just come right off and I can see everything. It's hilarious. It's really funny. It's that in the Liam Neeson scene from Extra Spot just classic. What's hilarious is that idea is basically the basis of Zapped that Scott bay Vie from the eighties. Sure. Maybe, Sir Patrick Stewart wrote that maybe or is a big fan of it and writed it all you never know. Uh, I think, Chuck, I'm sensing like a bird can sense Earth's magnetic field. That short stuff is apt. You're correct. Radio Stuff you should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD,  
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 2,500 clip(s)