Show WHY DO BIRDS MIGRATE some birds migrate by day bu but t most of them seek the cover of darkness day migrants include ducks and geese which also migrate by night hawks swallows the nighthawk and the chimney swill the last two combining business and pleasure catch their morning mornin gor or evening meal during a zigzag flight that tends in the desired direction the daily advance of such migrants covers only a few miles and when a large body of water is encountered they pass around rather than across it the night migrants include all the great family of warblers warb lers the thrushes flycatchers vireos eireos orioles tanagers managers ta shore birds and most of the sparrows they usually begin their flight soon after dark and end it before dawn and go farther before than after midnight night migration probably results in more casualties from natural causes than would occur if the birds made the same jurney by day but on the other hand there is a decided gain in the matter of food supply for instance a bird feeds all day on the north shore of the gulf of I 1 M mexico exico if then it waited until the next bornig to make its flight across the gulf in the day time it would arrive on the mexican coast at nightfall and would have to wait until the following morning to appease its hunger thus there would be 36 consecutive hours without food whereas by night migration the same journey can be performed with only a 12 hours fast during migration birds are peculiarly liable to destruction by striking high objects the washington monument at the national capital has witnessed the death of many little migrants on a single morning in in the spring of 1902 nearly lifeless bodies were strewn around its base As long as the torch in the statue of liberty in in new york harbor was kept lighted the sacrifice of birds life it caused was enormous even reaching a maximum of birds in a month |