Tiny Songbird Can Fly the Atlantic, Say Scientists

Jakarta Globe, AFP, Apr 01, 2015

(Photo courtesy of borealbirds.org/Kevin T. Karlson)

Paris. A diminutive songbird weighing the equivalent of just three teaspoons of sugar can fly over the north Atlantic, scientists said on Tuesday, resolving a 50-year mystery.

The tiny superbird is the blackpoll warbler (Setophaga striata), they reported in the journal Biology Letters.

Tipping the scale at a mere 12 grams, the white-throated, black-capped bird migrates each autumn from New England to South America.

For half a century, scientists have debated whether the birds fly non-stop over the ocean or take breaks on land to carry out this marathon flight.

Backpack flight recorders, attached to 40 of the birds, have now provided “irrefutable evidence” that they do it all in one go, the scientists said.

The geolocators, weighing only 0.5 gram, found that the birds completed an astonishing non-stop flight of between 2,270 and 2,770 kilometers.

This was the distance from their summer homes in Vermont and Nova Scotia to Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Greater Antilles islands, where they made landfall before continuing to northern Venezuela and Colombia.

The devices were able to track the birds’ flight path but were not big enough to transmit the data in real time.

Three devices with the stored information were recovered for analysis from the Vermont birds, and two from the Novia Scotia group.

Albatrosses, sandpipers and gulls are famous for their ultra-long flights — but they have broad, long wings and can settle on water if they get tired or blown off course.

For a forest bird no bigger than a tennis ball, which would drown if it touched the sea, to do such a feat is a wonder, the researchers said.

“For small songbirds, we are only just now beginning to understand the migratory routes that connect temperate breeding grounds to tropical wintering areas,” said Bill DeLuca at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“We’re really excited to report that this is one of the longest non-stop overwater flights ever recorded for a songbird, and finally confirms what has long been believed to be one of the most extraordinary migratory feats on the planet.”

The trackers provided confirmation that had thwarted previous investigations into the blackpolls.

“The indirect evidence in favor of an Atlantic voyage was fairly strong,” said Ryan Norris, a professor of biology at the University of Guelph, Ontario.

“You have birds landing on ships in the Atlantic, radar studies off the tip of Nova Scotia showing the birds heading south, and very few sightings of blackpolls in the southern US in the fall.”

Agence France-Presse

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Kryon Q&A

Question: Dear Kryon: I was wondering about the way I feel about whales and dolphins. I've had a feeling that I have to go to them sometime, but I don't know how or what I'm to do when I get there. Please help.

Question: Dear Kryon: I'm a Turkish/Islam woman of 57. I live in Ankara and work for the European Commission's project in Turkey. I've read almost all of the Kryon books twice, and I'm planning to read them once more. My question is about the whales. Why do they commit mass suicide? What is the reason for this very sad event? Is it a kind of protest against Human Beings?

Answer: Dear ones, we've channelled many times about the whales of this planet. In review, they're the living portions of an actual grid-system! They contain the "history of Earth" within their beings, and they're sacred for that reason. They coordinate and cooperate with the crystalline grid of your planet, which is currently being rewritten (see Kryon channelling on the Website: "What's Next?" December 8, 2002). Doesn't it strike you odd that these mammals are the only ones protected against hunting by more than 90 percent of the countries of Earth... even the places without oceans? Do you think that this is an accident or a coincidence? No. It's cellular information for all humanity to protect the whales and keep them safe. Dolphins are their cousins and support group, and they play a role in the whales' development. This is why you're so attracted to them.

Whales do not commit mass suicide. They have no consciousness to allow for this, and it has never happened. Instead, you see whales often beaching themselves and then being saved by Humans, only to re-beach themselves and die. This takes place mostly on the coastlines of your continents, and often on those areas of topography that "stick out," such as a peninsula or isthmus. Your Cape Cod is a good example in America, and is also a place where this has recently happened (up to 47 whales on a beach).

The reason is that whales, dolphins, amphibians, birds, and even insects all navigate to their breeding ground or migration areas each year via the magnetic grid of the planet! Each group follows the ley lines of magnetic influence, almost as if they had a built-in compass. In fact, they actually do!

The magnetic grid of this planet has changed so much, so quickly, as we told you it would in 1989, that there hasn't been time for the pods of whales to adjust with time to these changes. Instead, many simply follow the old magnetic lines of migration, only to find themselves on a beach instead of the open ocean, as the old magnetic direction used to take them. They're confused, and they simply line up and try again, just as they have for years. These things are temporary, and as tragic as you might see them, it's all part of "pruning" the system, and the calves will go around in the future, establishing new instinctive information for the new whales regarding the grid changes. This information has even now been validated this year (2003) by your scientists.