Finding the way Not all birds migrate in daylight - in fact the majority may travel at night.
Redwings travelling to Ireland from Scandinavia leave the coast of Norway at sunset.
They may get an initial direction from the setting sun, but will need other references to keep them on course through the night. In an experiment, birds that were known to migrate at night were placed in a planetarium. The birds responded to changes made in the positions of the star patterns by changing their own positions in such a way that they would have remained 'on course' had they been actually on migration. These birds use the pattern of stars to compensate for direction as others do with the sun in daytime. To do this they would need to know how high the sun should appear at a given time of day.