New discoveries in LANDbird migration using GEO LOC ATORS, and a flight plan for the future

摘要

Bird migration is a spectacular natural phenomenon that has generated wonder and interest for centuries. Feats of migration inspire amazement—individual birds that weigh less than 200 g may log more than 80,000 km annually (Egevang et al. 2010), travel more than 600 km day–1 (Stutchbury et al. 2009, ?kesson et al. 2012), and cross huge geographic barriers such as oceans (Bairlein et al. 2012) and inhospitable deserts (T?ttrup et al. 2012b). Despite the vast geography covered during migration, many birds return to the same territories year after year. Although incredible progress has been made in our understanding of bird migration (Newton 2008), many gaps remain in our knowledge of the migration of small birds.