World Migratory Bird Day  Oct. 12, 2024

Celebrate our travelling feathered friends on World Migratory Bird Day! Some migrations are truly astounding. The bar-tailed godwit embarks on an 11,000-kilometre nonstop flight across the Pacific from Alaska to New Zealand. The tiny ruby-throated hummingbird, weighing less than a nickel, makes the trip across the Gulf of Mexico—a seemingly impossible feat for its size. Migratory birds navigate the globe, instinctively knowing when and where to move to exploit seasonal abundance. The Arctic tern outshines them all with its intercontinental journey from pole to pole, covering 30,000 kilometres. Their migration routes are passages created based on environmental cues.

© Maxime Riendeau/Getty Images

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