Amazing Bird Migrations

Along the Atlantic Coast, from the Maritime Provinces to Cape Cod in Massachusetts, the autumn flights of millions of land birds signal their migration south. The puzzling thing is that these land birds are heading out to sea! Birds of different kinds and sizes are heading for the Caribbean (2900 km) or even South America (3700 km). The only possible landing spot in between is Bermuda, about 1300 km or about 20 hours flying time. MOST DON’T EVEN STOP THERE! They pass over it at about 2 km up in the air. Many don’t even stop on a Caribbean island but carry on to South America for a non-stop flight of 80-90 hours!!

How can they do that? Some don’t survive and become food for ocean creatures. Plovers and sandpipers are known fly non-stop. Some birds weighing less than an ounce do it. Why would they choose the sea route when they could follow the land and find rest along the way like some other birds do? The sea route is much shorter. How did they know that? Flying at altitudes of 4 to 6 km high avoids predators and catches favorable wind currents. Who told them that?

What about fuel for the trip? The tiny Blackpoll Warbler, weighing less than 2 loonies, uses about 1/3 ounce of fat for the trip. That would be about 400,000 km per liter. Fantastic gas mileage. Biologist Ryan Norris, University of Guelph, clocked 5 warblers averaging 62 km/hr over a flight of 2540 km. The Golden Plover migrates from Nova Scotia to South America with weight loss from 6 ounces down to 4 ounces for the 3700 km flight. That’s one ounce of fuel for about 900 km! With upper atmosphere winds behind them some were clocked at 167-185 km/hr using tiny, attached electronic devices. Hummingbirds have been judged to use 1/10 ounce of fuel for the 800 km crossing of the Gulf of Mexico. The Arctic Tern has the longest migration of all – 42,000 km return trip annually from the Arctic to the Antarctic.

These abilities and programmed routes did not develop by chance, mutations and natural selection as evolution claims. We labor long and hard to not do things by chance. Mutations are mistakes in the DNA. Selection demands that there is a purposeful process of choosing. None of these make sense as an evolutionary process. These abilities were created by a very powerful and very intelligent Designer. Our Creator is amazing.

It’s all wonderfully amazing,

Henry Wiebe