Here is an observation by a young biologist:
“Throughout the war strange and mysterious signals rushed combat men to battle stations, sent fighter planes on ‘goose chases’, prompted lookouts to report unidentified aeroplanes diving into the sea…,” an excerpt from Bird Detection by Radar, by Irven O. Buss [The Auk, Vol. 63, Issue 3, July 1, 1946]
Here’s another, from a writer on mythology, religion, and philosophy:
“The creative researches and wonderful daring of our scientists today partake far more of the spirit of shamanism than of the piety of priest and peasant. They have shed all fear of the bounding serpent king. And if we are to match their boundless courage, and thus participate joyfully in their world without meanings, then we must allow our spirits to become, like theirs, wild ganders, and fly in timeless, spaceless flight…,” an excerpt from Joseph Campbell’s The Flight of the Wild Gander [The Viking Press, 1969]
In the absence of knowledge, we tell stories. The two articles I’ve quoted (each written in the years just after the second ‘War to End All Wars’) were accounts of how humans adjust to newly available possibilities. The first describes how military radar was inadvertently expanding scientific knowledge of bird movements, the second an attempt to bridge the chasm between myth, legend and a scientific methodology that would soon put humans on the moon, and along the way had made youngsters such as myself become accustomed to the specter of nuclear annihilation.
Humans have long speculated on just where birds go when they migrate. Each society has had its versions, usually cobbled together from observation and assumption. A short search while putting this post together took me from the Greek philosophy/science of Aristotle (he thoughts birds hibernated), past the quasi-scientific fantasies of French novelist Cyrano de Bergerac and English cleric Francis Godwin (both wrote versions of birds and humans seasonally migrating to the moon), and landed me on “The spirit of man, or, Some meditations (by way of essay) on the sense of that scripture, 1 Thes. 1: 23”, by Charles Morton, a late-1600s reverend/philosopher/physicist/educator whose checkered relationship with the British church hierarchy eventually made him migrate to North America, to become a professor at Harvard University. In his essay on the “spirit of man,” the professor contended that birds did, indeed, migrate to the moon each winter, and he laid out travel times (one month each way). Showing his scientific side, he credited the then-recent scientific theory that the moon lacked an atmosphere for allowing the migrators to travel so far, so fast (however, among other flaws, his treatise did not account for the difficulty of breathing without an atmosphere). If you too would like to ponder the professor’s meditations, it looks like reprints are still available, but I’d like to bring this post back nearer to earth, at least for the time being.
As post-war military radar technology was transitioned into wide networks of weather radar stations, the ‘strange and mysterious signals’ that Irven Buss and others described and rightly attributed to birds were accepted to be, indeed, images of birds in flight. By the early 1960s, scientists were using radar to track migration routes and densities, debunking unfounded migration theories and establishing baseline populations of various bird species and their seasonal habitats. In 1999, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency and multiple collaborators established the BirdCast project, a publicly available system to predict migrations, collect information on bird sightings, and to raise public awareness of bird migration hazards. Last post I linked to a live Bird Migration Map you can use to see where and approximately how many birds have been in flight across the U. S. in a 24-hour period. From March 1 through June 15 and August 1 through November 15, you can also receive a Migration forecast modeled for any location you’d like to monitor, explore radar-based measurements of the previous night’s movements on this Migration Dashboard, or go to the Migration Forecast map link below for a nightly look ahead.
Long ago, as many of my contemporaries were dreaming of becoming pilots and astronauts, or getting prepared to survive nuclear armageddon, I was already wandering off for long periods to lie on my back or prop myself on the edge of a cliff — satisfied to watch clouds and birds play the winds through the sky. Sometimes, I carried a bird identification book, though more often it was a paperback reprint of some philosophical musings on human wandering. Though the years have changed much, humans in flight have become more nuisance than novelty, wars are still being waged around the world, and nuclear missile-rattling is again headline news, this appreciation of life surviving human-engendered chaos remains necessary for me, and I highly recommend the practice to any of you tiring of fevered speculations and dire predictions.
There are many hazards for migrating birds to navigate, from pesticide and herbicide toxicities to habitat loss and human-installed obstructions — tall buildings, electrical lines, wind towers, toxic waste ponds, plate glass windows, and prowling cats to name just a few. Currently, a virulent strain of bird influenza is taking a devastating toll among some species, chronic drought and wildfire are causing massive seasonal die-offs for others. For some of these dangers, there are actions most of us can take to reduce or mitigate damages, while others require changes in social and business policy, and in long-treasured cultural practices. While acknowledging Joseph Campbell’s point that I quoted at the beginning, in which he essentially equates the scientific method with wild, fearless flight toward the unknown without preconceptions, I’ll add my own observation that migrating geese fly toward unseen, but not unknown nesting and feeding grounds, navigating the hazards and pleasures of the only world they’ll ever know. We humans can learn much about boundless courage from them, as well.
Up next, a look at a crucial stop-over for migrating geese, ducks, cranes, raptors and other birds: High and Drying — Colorado’s San Luis Valley, as Eastern Slope urban development and downstream water rights vie for the valley’s historically ample groundwater supply. Until then, take care of yourselves and help someone out along your way. - B.
For those of you who’d like to learn more about birds as you watch them, here’s an online field guide, plus an app link from Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Also from Cornell, a list of some easy to accomplish actions that help birds navigate human-caused hazards.