131.HOW FAR DO BIRDS MIGRATE?
GOLDEN PLOVER
Everybody knows that birds migrate. In fact, people use the disappearance and then the re-appearance of certain birds as a sort of way of telling the change of seasons. But no one fully understands why birds make such long journeys.
We cannot explain it by difference of temperature alone. The feathery coats birds have could protect them very well against the cold. Of course, as cold weather comes there is a lack of food for the birds, and this may explain their flight to places where it can be found. But then why do they migrate north again in the spring? Some experts think there is a connection between the change in the climate and the breeding instinct.
129.HOW DO BIRDS KNOW WHEN TO MIGRATE?
The migration of birds has fascinated man since the very beginning of history. Did you know that Homer wrote about it in 1000 B.C.; it’s mentioned in the Bible; and the great Greek philosopher, Aristotle, studied the question?
And yet, so many thousands of years later, we still don’t have the complete answers to the fascinating phenomenon of the migration of birds. By this migration, we mean the movement of birds south in the fall and north in the spring, or moving from lowlands to highlands, or from the interior to the seacoasts.
