BACKPACK-wearing songbirds have revealed the pace of their migration for the first time, which may have key implications for their conservation.
at York University in Toronto, Canada, and colleagues fitted 14 wood thrushes and 20 purple martins from the same breeding populations with devices to record the time of sunrise and sunset each day. When the birds returned to Canada from their winter migration to Central and South America, the team used the data to calculate their daily latitude and longitude. 鈥淭his is the first time anyone has been able to map songbird migration routes to the tropics and back,鈥� she says.
The records showed that the birds dawdled on their way south, but rushed back (Science, ). Stutchbury believes that returning early helps them claim the best nesting sites.
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The team also found that the wood thrushes wintered together, implying that each population has its own wintering area. If true, the loss of a small area of rainforest could snuff out a population 鈥� crucial knowledge for conservation, says Jeff Kelly at the University of Oklahoma, Norman.