Don’t you feel great these days! It is spring; the tulips are flowering en masse in Ottawa; winter parkas are giving way to skirts and shorts; the fruit tree blossoms are perfuming the neighbourhood parks; lots of reasons to rejoice. However, what I enjoy most is hearing for the first time of the year the familiar voice of a bird migrating through my yard, or a nearby wood announcing that it is back. Likely last spring or summer was the last time that voice was heard. Many of these birds are transients, moving through our cities, yards and farms, on their way north, most likely to the boreal forest. The seasonal bird migration in many parts of the world is amazing, awesome and inspiring. Not surprisingly, some people have made a big celebration out of the annual bird migration. International Migratory Bird Day was founded in 1993 by the US Fish and Wildlife Dept., the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Centre, and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology to celebrate and raise awareness of bird migration. Festivals and events have been promoted in many countries of the Americas around this day, typically around the 2nd weekend of May though it has become less and less important what actual day it is.

In 2006, the World Migratory Bird Day was founded by the United Nations Environment Program and African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement as an answer of sorts to the popular Americas program. It is growing in popularity and is sponsored also by BirdLife International, of which Nature Canada is the Canadian co-partner along with Bird Studies Canada who are celebrating their 50th anniversary in a few days.

In Canada the migration of birds is one thing that defines our country. Take the massive boreal forest as an example. It covers about 60% of the country from Newfoundland to British Columbia, to the Mackenzie delta in the Northwest Territories. Birds are essential to the healthy ecology of the boreal as consumers of defoliating insects, dispersers of seeds from plants, and general keepers of the forest. The healthy growth of trees is intricately linked to healthy songbird populations. The pulse of life that infuses the boreal each spring, that brings out the swarms of midges and blackflies, also brings these birds back from their tropical wintering area to raise families and reproduce successfully.

Ninety percent of the birds of the boreal leave it each year to migrate south. Most of the ducks and waterfowl in the boreal end up in the southern United States or Mexico, or along the Atlantic or Pacific coasts. The coastal wetlands of the southern US that is currently threatened by the BP Oil spill is one of the most important destinations for our waterfowl and other wetland birds including the herons, bitterns, and rails. For our boreal songbirds including as the flycatchers, vireos, swallows, thrushes, warblers, and sparrows that breed there, the top five winter destinations are:
USA 1,150,000,000
Mexico 680,000,000
Brazil 200,000,000
Columbia 110,000,000
Venezuela 60,000,000

Then there are real long-distance migrants, the terns and the millions of shorebirds – or “sandpipers” as some people call them. Most of the shorebirds that have long-tapered wings which carry many of the them from the Canadian Arctic to coastal or inland destinations in South American or even Europe or Africa. The Arctic Tern pictured above migrates to Tierra del Fuego

Migratory birds link us together, across continents, across cultures, across time and space. The Wood Thrush that I hear singing its heart out in Gatineau Park was sharing its habitat only a month ago with Manakins, Elenias, and Antbirds in mid-altitude tropical forest in Nicaragua. The Purple Martins nesting near the Ottawa river may have come all the way from Sao Paulo State in Brazil and made that phenomenal 9,000 to 10,000 kilometre trip in less than three weeks! So, if that bird you hear has the cool and gentle sway of a samba rhythm in its voice, or the festive energy of a Mariachi band, maybe it is telling you something about where it lives when not in Canada!

Indeed we have much to celebrate because of our migratory birds. We also have much work to do to protect individual birds, their populations and their species. The work, like the birds, must be international in scope. So, for the time being, enjoy the migration. Contemplate its scale and magnitude. Learn about the feats that birds perform to migrate such distances. Reduce risks to birds migrating through your yard or neighbourhood (see FLAP website) Attend a bird festival somewhere near you. However, most importantly, tune into the migration now, and connect yourself to something much greater than you can imagine!

Photos by Shutter Stock
Photo 1 Sandhill Cranes
Photo 2 Arctic Tern