The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1905-08-24
THE TRAVELLING BIRD
PULLING PERFORMANCE OF T4a
RED EYED VeRO.

Does He Fly q Thousand Miles In
Single Night - Where Does the
Mysterious Chimney Swift Go Fur
Five Months Out Of Every YearS
A man who travels 10000 miles In q
year is counted globe trotter" Of I'M
usual energy. But our common night
hawk, that every American boy and
girl knows. thinks nothing of having q
summer home up in Alaska and a win
ter resort in Argentina and travelling
the 1000 miles between twice a year.
Its annual trip often covers 115 de.
grees Of latitude.
And some Of our shore birds, a gov.
eminent naturalist tells us, are stiu
more inveterate voyagers. making ex.
ira flights and covering 10000 miles or
so q year.
Voyaging by the air line Is some.
times extremely rapid transit. The
summer warbler that spends the win.
ter in Central America and the nesting
season at Great Slave lake. far up In
the arctic, travels twice as fast as the
spring does. One hundred and sixteen
| miles day Is the record so far to
Great Slave lake, the speed always In.
creasing as the birds move northward.
The robin Is an old fashioned, leisure
! ly tourist in comparison with some 9TH
er species. 1t never does more than
seventy miles day. The average rate
for all migrating birds from New Or
leans to Minnesota Is about twenty.
three miles a day. But after leaving
Minnesota several species Of feathered
migrants make first 40, then Y and
finally $50 miles a day before they
reach Alaska.
| The bird traveller that gives the nat.
uralist the hardest transportation
problem to solve is the red eyed vireo.
| 1t winters In Central America and ap-
pears each spring at the mouth Of the
Mississippi, travelling twenty miles a
day. At this leisurely rate it proceeds
for six weeks. all the way up to the
| latitude Of northern Nebraska Then
suddenly. in the space of twenty-four
| hours and before a single red eyed
vireo has been seen anywhere in the
region between, numbers of the birds
appear in British Columbia, thousand
miles to the northwest.
| This puzzling performance Is repeat.
ed every year. Unless the red eyed
vireo flies a thousand miles in a single
night. how does it manage this be-
wilGering schedule?
No1N bod MIL
knows either where the chimney swift
goes for five months out Of every year.
| Great focks Of chimney swifts, with
numberless fledglings among them,
leave the United States every autumn.
Their movements can be easily follow
ed till their various migrating bands
join into a countless host on the north
ern coast Of the gulf of Mexico. One
day they are there; the next day they
are-nowhere.
Five months later, in March, joyful
twittering far up in the air heraldS
their temperance on the same spot,
plump and brisk after their winter so
| iourn But where the winter has been
spent only the swifts know. 1t used
to be a tradition (made out Of whole
cloth'O that they hibernated in the
mud. But that merely showed the
hopeless attitude Of mems minds to-
ward the problem. for no swift was
ever found in the mud in any known
spot. What mud? Where? was there
! fore the natural question, never an
swered, and leaving the mystery deep
Grand muddier-than ever.
The golden plover, too, has a yearly
schedule of travel known to the nat
uralist in every detail.
| In June it reaches the barren
grounds far in the arctic circle. where
Greedy found these bird voyagers as
far north as latitude 81 degrees. The
nests are built on the moss, close above
the frozen ground; the young are rear
ed, and then the f1ocks hasten to Lab
rador in August. where the crOwberry
grows for their benefit SO thickly that
when they leave the feasting place In
the fall their bodies are plump almost
to bursting, and their very flesh is
| stained red with the crimson juice OF
the berries they have eaten.
They strike straight for the Antilles
| and for South America beyond, more
than $500 miles in all. The plOver can
| swim. however, and rest on the ocean
wave. and on the way down it fire.
uuently feeds in the Sargasso sea,
where. far out in the Atlantic, thou
sands of square miles Of seaweed TEEN
with marine life.
| After resting a few weeks in the
Antilles the plover starts afresh, this
/ time for Patagonia and southern Ar
| gentina. Unlike other birds, it puts
it's whole mind to travelling and flies
both night and day. Six months In
Patagonia, and then back it travels to
the arctic by way Of Guatemala, Texas
and the Mississippi. The whole yearly
route forms a great, irregular ellipse,
5000 miles long and 5000 miles across
at it's widest point. Surely. marvellous
as were the stories about the migration
of birds believed by the ignorant in
earlv unscientif1c times, the truth Is, as
usual, stranger than fction.-Youth's
Companion.