Little Songbirds Brave the Ocean Flyway During Fall Migration

https://blog.nature.org/science/2017/09/21/ocean-flyway-surprising-open-water-routes-songbird-migrations/

​The Ocean Flyway: The Surprising Open Water Routes of Songbird Migrations
BY JOE SMITH
SEPTEMBER 21, 2017
​Cool Green Science

​If you are fascinated with migration, it is a good time to be alive. Sophisticated tracking technologies are revealing migration routes and destinations that have long been inscrutable.
 
One recent revelation is that small songbirds are bypassing land and making direct flights southbound over the Atlantic Ocean during fall migration in September and October.
 
It’s an unlikely proposition that a bird that is only the weight of two sheets of paper would opt to fly between one and two thousand miles in a straight shot across open water.  It would seem that the better bet would be to take a leisurely route over land where a safety net of habitat awaits below.
 
Blackpoll warblers, Connecticut warblers, bobolinks and perhaps other species all make this paradoxical choice, setting off across a watery abyss as they make their way to winter destinations in South America.

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