Some 30 million birds jammed Florida's airspace Sunday into Monday, flying south until each group reached the best wintertime altitude for their attitude.
Seven million of those, after flying over the Panhandle or Penisula, were later picked up flying over Collier, Lee, and Hendry counties
Each fall, waves of birds ride cold fronts down the Atlantic Flyway, which roughly spans the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Appalachian Mountains to the west.
Peaking during weeks like this one in September and October songbirds stream south on overnight flights, shorebirds and raptors move by day, and waterfowl build up on wetlands as freezes creep south.
South Florida is the winter destination for some; for others, it's a stopover on the way to the Caribbean and South America.
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Few get more excited about the feathery skies than Keith Laakkonen, Florida Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary director.
He can tell you the name of just about every bird that flew over his house: black-and-white warblers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, and the gray catbird, which will imitate for you without being asked. It sounds like a lonely tomcat in an alley.
“People probably hear it all the time,” he said. “They don't know what it is, this gorgeous slate gray bird with a black cap. They're very dapper.”
In the Northern Hemisphere, migratory birds fly north in the spring in search of food and nesting habitat.
In the fall, they fly south, retreating from the cold temperatures and food shortages that winter brings.
More than 450 North American bird species migrate from summer breeding areas — which may be as far away as the Arctic circle — to spend the winter months in South Florida or the tropics. Some fly thousands of miles every year, instinctively retracing their ancestral routes. Cornell Labs did research that equates that with about 4.5 billions birds from the greater North American continent head south every fall.
Birders come up with the number of fliers heading south during a week like this by using institutional knowledge, real-time online databases – and weather radar: flocks show up on the screen at night.
“That’s a scientific guess,” Laakkonen said. “That’s all I’m going to say about that.”
He said birding is very much like Forrest Gump’s chocolates, or Pokémon Go’s surprise eggs or wild Pokémons.
“You never know what you're going to get,” he said. “And the moment that you get something that's rare or interesting or exciting it gets that same adrenaline going. And you don't have to download an app. You just need a pair of binoculars.”
Environmental reporting for WGCU is funded in part by Volo Foundation, a nonprofit with a mission to accelerate change and global impact by supporting science-based climate solutions, enhancing education, and improving health.
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