How Birds Navigate Their Awe-inspiring Travels

Discover how birds navigate their awe-inspiring travels.

- Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman

It’s one of the most astounding phenomena on earth. Every year in spring and fall, billions of birds worldwide are on the move to their seasonal homes. Everyone’s heard a fact or two about migration, but specific details about these major movements aren’t as well known. Here’s a primer on how these feathered travelers make their journeys.

Where do they go, and when?

Not all birds are great travelers; some stay home. A downy woodpecker or a chickadee might spend its whole life close to where it hatched. Others do move, but only short distances. For example, certain kinds of grouse migrate by walking, putting only 10 or 12 miles between their summer and winter territories.

Birds of a feather don’t always flock together when it comes to migration. Some American robins fly from Canada to Florida in fall, but others in mild climates stay in the same place all year. An individual robin might even go south one year but remain up north the next.

On the other hand, some species make astonishing journeys every year. American golden-plovers travel from the tundras of northern Canada and Alaska to southern South America in fall. Arctic terns fly even farther, moving from the cold, northernmost Canadian islands or the north side of Greenland all the way to the edge of the Antarctic. They log some serious mileage—their yearly round trip can total more than 25,000 miles.