EXPLORING NATURE: MIGRATION

My wet-weather creek has finally dried up; it was nice while it lasted. If we’ll get about a five-inch downpour, it will burble again.

Such is nature, things ebb and flow. Birds and animals migrate, departing from one place and arriving in another.

Some of those avian migrations are truly astounding. The little black-chinned hummingbird at my sugar-water feeder could well have flown across the Gulf of Mexico to get here. Come winter, it will head back down south.

Which birds are the all-time champs when it comes to miles traveled in migration?

Well, at the bottom of the list is probably the dusky grouse in the Rocky Mountains. It migrates on foot, moving just a few miles, but up or down thousands of feet in elevation, going from lower, warmer areas in summer, up to snow-bound heights in winter.

Five species are probably the longdistance migratory champions.

The arctic tern makes a 49,000-mile round trip from Greenland/Iceland to Antarctica.

The sooty shearwater flies 40,000 miles round trip, New Zealand to Alaska.

Sabine’s gull travels 24,000 miles round trip, Greenland to southwest Africa.

Pectoral sandpipers wing 20,000 miles round trip, Greenland to southwest Africa.

Finally, the bar-tailed godwit flies some 18,600 miles round trip, Alaska to New Zealand.

And while it does not migrate by season, the wandering albatross lives up to its name and flies some 114,000 miles over the ocean in a single year.

I get a little tired just thinking about it.