No matter how you get to see it, a bird migration is an awesome sight. (© Tatsiana Hendzel - Dreamstime.com)
Bird migration is fascinating. How do they navigate and know the route to take? How do they stay healthy and full of energy over such a long journey? And how do they even know to go at all?
We could spend a lifetime trying to fully understand it, and still a lot of it would be a mystery. But there's one aspect of bird migration that we understand. A lot of birds migrate. And some flock can be huge.
Check this out...
? Key West radar has had a busy night, but not because of weather! The most impressive display of migratory birds so far this year occurred overnight. This product shows biological targets in green/yellow flying north over the Keys. Showers/rain are depicted in darker blues. ? pic.twitter.com/V2PJfucxJA
— NWS Key West (@NWSKeyWest) February 17, 2020
Birds, birds, birds!
A prairie warbler, one of the possible species of bird involved in the mass migration. (Getty Embed)
That video was taken by the weather radar service in Key West, Florida on February 17. Key West is a part of a chain of islands that extend off the Florida coast into the Gulf of Mexico, just north of Cuba.
This map of Key West, shows how small it is compared to the flock in the video. (Google Maps)
And the flock of birds that you just saw pass over the islands as a green/yellow blob? It was about 145 kilometres (90 miles wide). Think about that for a second. You could get in a car traveling at highway speeds, drive for an hour, and still not get from one end of the flock to the other! That is some serious bird migration.
No word yet on the exact species, though it was likely a blend of sparrows, wrens, and warblers. Maybe they planned a great vacation together!
😆
Woah. 😯