Steve and Susie wrote:
> Derby Hill [...] also recorded over 100 chickadees moving. This is
> interesting, as 2 weeks ago, while at Fair Haven Beach SP, Susie &
> I saw a large group of small birds kettling over a tree along the
> shore. We thought they were chickadees, but did not believe it, nor
> report it, as we assumed that chickadees did not “migrate”. S. &
> S. Fast
>
When the word migration appears without scare quotes, I tend to think
of the default type of migration that so many of our region's
breeding birds undertake: a complete, latitudinal, seasonal removal-
and-return type of migration ("true migration", as it's sometimes
called). Since Chickadees don't do that, we can add qualifiers (in
place of the scare-quotes) like Partial and Dispersive to
informatively characterize what they do.
However, the following quote from http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/
species/039/articles/migration suggests that what Chickadees do is
actually best characterized as irruptive migration.
"Nature Of Migration In The Species
Over 60,000 Canadian banding records collected from 1921 to 1995 show
that 90% of recaptured birds show no movement (Brewer et al. 2000).
Long-distance movements do occur, however, generally by young birds
during a period of post-fledgling dispersal. In addition, large
movements occur irregularly every 2+ years; these events are best
termed “irruptions” rather than true migration (Lawrence 1958,
Hussell and Stamp 1965, Bagg 1969, Bock and Lepthien 1976, Smith
1991, Hussell 1996). Few adults are found in these irruptions (Bagg
1969, Smith 1991)."
-Geo
Geo Kloppel
Bowmaker & Restorer
227 Tupper Road
Spencer NY 14883
607 564 7026
[email protected]
[email protected]
--
Cayugabirds-L List Info:
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES
ARCHIVES:
1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html
2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html
3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds
Please submit your observations to eBird:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
--
