The Intro
We can always sense when fall is in full swing when the familiar honking of geese is high in the sky as they sail south. The miracle of migration happens twice every year bringing birds to and from their homes for the season. Once, when the days get longer and the weather starts warming up, signaling the move north. Again, when the days get shorter and the young birds fly on newly feathered wings to warmer southern climates. In North America, there are four flyways that follow major landscape dividers. The Atlantic flyway captures the birds east of Hudson’s Bay and follows the coast south to Florida and beyond. The Second is the Mississippi Flyway which handles a great deal of birds from the arctic and along the western edge of the Hudson’s Bay and down the Mississippi River Valley and out across the Gulf of Mexico. The third is the Central Flyway which follows along the eastern edge of the Rockies south towards the Texas Panhandle and into Mexico’s East Coast. The Flyway that I am most familiar with is the Pacific Flyway. These are all the birds that live in Alaska and head south picking up and dropping off the birds that live in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California. We are going to have a look at the Pacific Flyway in a little more detail.