Across North America and the Atlantic, Documenting an Enormous Migration Journey for a Tiny Songbird

By UMass Amherst
3/19/2019

UMass Amherst, Canadian researchers identify blackpoll warbler migration routes

Blackpoll warblers that breed in western North America may migrate up to 12,400 miles roundtrip each year, some crossing the entire North American continent before making a nonstop trans-ocean flight of up to four days to South America. Now a new study led by first author Bill DeLuca at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and project lead Ryan Norris at the University of Guelph, Ontario offers details of the feat.

Reporting in the journal Ecology, DeLuca, Norris and colleagues provide new data on the central- and western-nesting blackpolls based on data collected from miniaturized geo-locators harnessed to the birds like tiny backpacks.

Read more here: https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/across-north-america-and-atlantic