- New Science in Brief
Amazing: Tiny Birds Fly Without Landing for Three Days
Warblers that weigh about as much as a stack of 12 business cards fly thousands of miles across the Atlantic during their fall migration.
Imagine a journey that requires you to first pack on the pounds, then get rid of your intestines, and finally to forgo eating and sleeping for three days. For the blackpoll warbler, such a feat is called their fall migration.
Barely half an ounce (12 grams), these tiny birds fly from northeastern Canada to South America every fall. But no one knew what path they took. It turns out the warblers fly nonstop over the Atlantic Ocean, researchers report March 31 in the journal Biology Letters. (Learn about the world's longest migration.)
Ecologists affixed lightweight tracking devices to five blackpoll warblers during the fall 2013 migration to discover the animals' overwater route.
The warblers fuel up on fat for
