Читать книгу Migration of Birds (1979) онлайн

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Some people, who easily accepted the migratory travels of larger birds, were unable to understand how smaller species, some of them notoriously poor fliers, could make similar journeys. They accordingly conceived the idea that larger species (e.g., storks and cranes) carried their smaller companions as living freight. In some southern European countries, it is still believed these broad-pinioned birds serve as aerial transports for hosts of small birds that congregate upon the Mediterranean shore awaiting the opportunity for passage to winter homes in Africa. Similar beliefs, such as hummingbirds riding on the backs of geese, have been found among some tribes of North American Indians.

Today we realize that birds do not migrate by "hitching" rides with other birds and that the scope of the migration phenomenon is worldwide, not simply limited to the United States, the Northern Hemisphere, or the world's land masses. The migration heritage is developed just as extensively in Old World warblers migrating to and from Europe and Africa as in our wood warblers traveling from Canada and the United States to South America and back. One of the fundamental differences in migration patterns of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres is that no land species nesting in the South Temperate Zone migrates into the North Temperate Zone, but a few seabirds, such as the sooty shearwater, Wilson's storm-petrel, and others, migrate north across the Equator over the vast ocean expanses after nesting in the South.