Bird migration is that spectacular journey many birds make. Some of these journeys are short – like coming down a mountain to spend winter in the lowlands
Enjoying bird migration | Desirée Falzon
Bird migration is that spectacular journey many birds make
7 May 2021, 11:45am
Grey Heron. Photo by Aron Tanti
What
Bird migration is that spectacular journey many birds make. Some of these journeys are short – like coming down a mountain to spend winter in the lowlands – and some are seriously, mind-bogglingly long. Whether or not you believe that the pigeon-sized Arctic Tern does a 70,000 km round trip from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back in one year, the facts are there. And undisputed.
Of course, birds don’t take on these feats of endurance for fun, nor even to wow us ground-bound humans. They do it to survive, basically to escape bad weather and to look for milder climes where food is plentiful. It’s a good strategy for survival but the journeys are fraught with dangers, not least some formidable geography – like a sea. Most birds can’t swim so they avoid lengthy sea crossings. Many find a route strewn with islands
A species last recorded in Malta 50 years ago has been among a number of rare birds sighted by birdwatchers as the spring migration went into full swing.
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No other bird brings to mind the spring migration than the European turtle dove (gamiema in Maltese). It personifies the struggle of the species to return to Europe to breed from its wintering grounds in the Sahel region, south of the Sahara, travelling across huge swathes of the desert and the expanses of open seas to return to its breeding sites from southern England to eastern Russia. It also awakens the passionate side of hunters, who for years have seen it as a given right to hunt it in spring in Malta.
Yet the number of turtle doves has been falling drastically in the last 50 or so years. The population has crashed by 95 per cent in England and a further 75 per cent across Europe. Much can be said on why this once iconic species has now become so scarce.
In these trying times, social distancing is the name of the game and fortunately, this fits very well with birdwatching, which is best done alone or in very sma