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Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula)
This tiny bird travels 10,000 miles every year! In March, orioles leave their winter homes in Latin American rainforests and fly north for 5,000 miles until they find a good place to live in the United States or Canada. They average 100 miles every day! Could you walk 100 miles in a day? They migrate for almost 60 days. Could you walk 5,000 miles in 60 days?  In the big shade trees of North America, orioles weave nests, lay eggs and feed their baby orioles. In the fall, when the leaves begin to change color, they fly south again. That's another 5,000 miles. WOW!  Why don't the orioles just stay in one place? Because it gets freezing cold in the US and Canada - BRRR! - and the birds can't find any insects to eat. So they fly south to live in the rainforest, where it is warm and there's plenty to eat. Why don't they stay in the rainforest where it's warm all year? That's a very good question. They fly north because the rainforest gets TOO hot in the summer. They migrate every year because they like to live in warm temperatures, not too hot and not too cold. Are the baby birds taught how to migrate by their parents? How do they know where to go? No, baby orioles are born knowing when it's time to migrate and which direction to fly. And then every year the birds learn new things along the way, like how to navigate by the stars and where to rest and find food during the long journey. |
