Short Stuff: Bird Migration

Where are all those birds flying anyway? How do they decide? When do they do it? All of these questions, and more, are answered in this week's ep.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck.
Jerry's here too, sitting him for Dave. So let's go
with short stuff. Go go. This is something I'm surprised
we haven't covered uh succinctly. We may have talked about
it before here and there, but uh, the idea and
I literally thought of this because I saw a flock
of birds flying in that beautiful V pattern, A flock

(00:25):
of seagulls. Oh I wish, because you know they run
so far away, uh flying, And I was like, where
are those guys going and what are they doing? And
how do they know? It seems a little late, like
why are you doing it now? And how do you
know how to get there? It turns out we know
the answers to some of these questions, and we're talking

(00:46):
about bird migration. Uh. And this comes from our old
friends at house stuff works dot com and Aliyah Hoyt,
who did, I think a really great job writing a
very succinct article on this cool topic. You should go
check it out and read it there. But um, the
notion about birds flying south for the winter, we should
say right off the bat is like, that's just a

(01:06):
very um sort of lazy way of putting it, because
there are more than nine species of birds, and so
you you're just saying birds flying south. You can't just
say that about all birds because not all birds do
fly south. No, Um, they don't. But the ones that
do fly south are incredibly fascinating because, like you said,

(01:29):
all those questions you have, we have a lot of
answers to and um, the urge to migrate has a
name even. That's one of the things I love about
this chuck. There's some great terms hidden within. It is
a great band name too, by the way, migratory restlessness, okay,
photo period, those are okay, I'm gonna give them all away, okay,

(01:50):
but the the the natural urge, UM, I would guess
an unconscious urge too. If you're a bird, UM to
migraine is called my gratory restlessness. And a lot of
times they chalk it up to a change in the
length of the day, which is called the photo period.
That's right. I don't think we said about sevent of

(02:12):
birds do migrate, and um, it's kind of like two
buckets on why you would this is that first bucket,
which is the daylight kind of giving them a queue
and This means that there, um, the daylight is giving
them the que they're not flying south because like it's
getting a little bit chilly and the worms aren't quite
what they used to be. But it's more like, hey,

(02:35):
the the daylight is changing. That's a signal to me.
That means we are known as band name obligate migrants. Okay,
that's a good one. Pretty good. Yeah. That means that
nature is commanding you to go migrate. You're this isn't
any choice that you're making. This is just part of
who you are. You migrate as a member of this

(02:57):
bird species. Yes, and if you're an obligatet migrant, you
probably opened up for the talking heads in the eighties,
it would be my guess. So the good thing about
obligate migrants is because it's so hardwired, their behavior is
very predictable and easily studied. Um, Like, the the distance
they travel is going to be basically the same year
after year, generation after generation. When they go is going

(03:18):
to be about the same. When they come back, it's
going to be about the same. They're just extraordinarily dependable, right. Yeah.
The ones that you can't count on at all are
the facultative migrants. And I said it right, I didn't
just add an extra syllable. Yeah, not nearly as good
of a band name. For that reason. It's a little clunky.
It is ted clunky. But these are the ones that

(03:39):
migrate because they have to. They're really lazy as far
as migration goes. Uh yeah, I mean they're the ones
that take the cues around them. I kind of like
them because they're not like, I'm just gonna do it
because the daylight says so. They do it because food
might be getting short, or it might be getting a
little chilly for them or whatever. Uh um. And they

(04:00):
basically know we can't stick around here, so let's hit
the road, right or hit the hit the sky. They're
kind of like the surfers of migrating birds. That's right,
I like that. Should we break now? Oh yeah, jeez, alright,
this is the shorty of my friend. Let's get back
to it in a minute. Okay, Well, now we're on
the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a

(04:23):
thing or two from Josh and Chuck it stuff you
should know. All right, Okay, Chuck, let's get back to it.

(04:50):
Answer how far do they migrate? Josh, what's the number
how many miles. Well, if you ask Dr Andrew Farnsworth,
Cornell Lab of ornithal g the metrics are all over
the ballpark. Exclamation point. How stuff works. Talk to Dr
Farnsworth and by the way, I can't say enough about
how stuff works, chuck. So Dr Farnsworth says that depending

(05:12):
on the birds, the species. I never thought about this,
they may not really move anywhere as far as like
a human would think of it. If they live like
on a mountain, they are probably going to stay on
the mountain. They just might change altitude, like you know,
a few hundred meters this way, a few that way. Um,
it makes a huge difference depending on the season. And

(05:34):
that counts as migration. I love that one. Sure, they
might stay in the same region or the same area,
they might stay in the same state. Uh. And just
you know, here in Georgia you could migrate just a
little further south in the winter and have some very
nice weather. Yeah, there's a pretty big difference between North
Georgia and South Georgia weather wise. Yeah. Time or you

(05:57):
could really get on your horse or your wing and
your migration maybe like truly epic. Uh. And I guess
we should talk about the most epics, the Arctic Arctic.
That word the Arctic turn. Uh, they go from poll
to poll, they go from the Antarctic to the Arctic.

(06:17):
And that's the last time I have to say that.
And that is a round trip of close to nineteen
thousand miles or thirty thousand clicks? Can I say clicks? Sure? Okay,
I didn't know what that was bad, because do you
think of Vietnam. I don't know who else called it clicks.
That's what I associated with, but I only heard it
in Vietnam War movies. I didn't know if that was

(06:39):
a bad thing. Anyway. Let's just call it kilometers. And
that is the largest or rather the longest migration on
planet Earth for anything, Yeah, any animal whatsoever. It's pretty
pretty impressive. Um. I found one called the bar tailed Godwit.
They hold the record for the longest NonStop flight of

(07:00):
let's hear it. They fly NonStop over sixty hundred miles
from Alaska to New Zealand without rest. Wow. Can you imagine? Yeah,
that's a real reaction. By the way, we don't Sometimes
we'll surprise each other with facts. Just sometimes we're being coy.
Yeah you thought I was gonna bust out something about
the Black Pole War war blurs didn't. No, No, I

(07:21):
know you'd have something new for me. So that was
that was a real reaction everyone. I'm not that good actor,
that's true. Appreciate that set me up for that, Oh
of course I did. Um. So the destination is kind
of the last piece, like whether or not they migrate
or not, how far they migrate, and now like where
are they going to go? And this one is really

(07:43):
interesting because they don't know for sure and they're trying
to answer these questions. But there are a lot of
super cool ideas about it. And one really cool sort
of side note to this is some species of bird
will go to the same place every single year, just
like you're going on a vacation, and they'll have the
same rest stops every year, just like you might on
a vacation. Yeah, they'll actually learn landmarks to follow. And yeah,

(08:08):
that's pretty cool because that means that if you see
some Canadian geese in your backyard one year, you're probably
going to see them the next year and so on
and so forth. That's cool. Um. They also think that
there's just a number of redundant systems that basically allow
birds to navigate. UM. One of them apparently is learning
how to navigate by the stars by constellations. Pretty impressive

(08:30):
for a bird. UM. They also can use the sun
to orient themselves. But then they have other um, they
believe they have other onboard equipment, like an ability to
see the Earth's electromagnetic field and orient themselves that way. Yeah,
and you said, see like some birds may sense it,
but they actually think that some birds there's a theory

(08:53):
that some have a special pigment that literally lets them
see it. Yeah, which is wild to think about. I
would love to see that. I guarantee in the next
fifty to seventy years, we're gonna have all sorts of
ways to see like uv um, to see magnetic fields,
just to see all sorts of just to experience the

(09:13):
world in different ways that we aren't even thinking of
right now. Guarantee it's going to be like a huge pathtime. Yeah.
Or put on those special glasses and someone's clothes are
off X ray glasses. Yeah, good idea, we're gonna make
a million bucks off of that. Did you ever see
the uh Ricky Gervais show extras? Uh, there's a great

(09:35):
bit online that you should look up. Just a scene
with Patrick Stewart, Sir Patrick Stewart, where he's Ricky Gervais
goes in his trailer and this is a short one
so I can tell the story real quick. Uh, Ricky
Gervais goes in his trailer. He's an extra in movies
and TV shows. That's the whole premise of the show.
And he seeks some advice. He's like, I'm just an
extra and like, you know, I'm trying to write screenplays

(09:58):
and make my own way inswer Patrick's where it like
really bonds with him. He's like, yeah, I'm I'm writing
my own screenplays as well. And his big idea is
that he is like, uh, has superpower is that he
can make a woman's clothes just fallow right off their body.
And Ricky Gervais keeps keeps it going like and you know,
and then what happens and you know, and then like

(10:19):
trying to get to some further plat point, but Patrick
Stewart just keeps saying, and you know, there's a police officer.
She comes up and I just look at her and
her clothes just come right off and I can see everything.
It's hilarious. It's really funny. It's that in the Liam
Neeson scene from Extra Spot just classic. What's hilarious is

(10:40):
that idea is basically the basis of Zapped that Scott
bay Vie from the eighties. Sure. Maybe, Sir Patrick Stewart
wrote that maybe or is a big fan of it
and writed it all you never know. Uh, I think, Chuck,
I'm sensing like a bird can sense Earth's magnetic field.
That short stuff is apt. You're correct. Radio Stuff you

(11:03):
should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
H