How Do Birds Migrate Over Long Distances?

Birds are like tiny explorers who travel far and wide every year. They use a special kind of map in their heads to find the way, sometimes it’s the sun, sometimes the stars, or even the Earth’s magnetic field! Like how you might follow a trail to get home from school, birds remember the paths they take and use them to return to their favorite places each year. It's like having an invisible compass inside of them!

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Examples

  1. A little bird follows the path its parents took to find food in the forest.
  2. A seagull uses the sun’s position to know which way to fly home at night.
  3. A tiny hummingbird remembers a mountain it saw on its journey and flies toward it.

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Categories: Biology · migration· birds· navigation · Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.