Tag: migration

Courtesy: UMass News & Media Relations  Across North America and the Atlantic, Documenting an Enormous Migration Journey for a Tiny Songbird UMass Amherst, Canadian researchers identify blackpoll warbler migration routes March 19, 2019 Contact: Bill DeLuca 443/223-0991 Blackpoll warbler with backpack. Photo courtesy of Hilary Cook, Wildlife Conservation Society Canada.Blackpoll migration AMHERST, Mass. ­– 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. Research teams deployed the dime-sized devices, weighing 0.5g and with a 12-month battery life, on male...