Bird Exchange
DB: This is Earth and Sky – on a place so remote and wild that chances are great you’ll never set foot there.
JB: It’s the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – nearly 20 million acres in northeast Alaska. Even though it’s remote, if you live in North America, you have a connection to this place.
DB: Each year, birds from every U.S. state in the “lower 48” – plus Canada, Mexico, and beyond – migrate to the refuge. They’re drawn by the abundant food and mild weather in summer in this part of Alaska. Famous summertime visitors to the refuge include the peregrine falcons – which spend their winters anywhere from Florida to Argentina. In the past, the falcons were nearly extinct due to the widespread use of DDT. The pesticide was banned in the 1970s, and now peregrine falcons are making a come-back.
JB: Or consider the yellow wagtail – a robin-sized songbird. It migrates thousands of kilometers between the Arctic and Borneo – a large island in southeast Asia. The birds’ return to the misty mountain villages of Borneo has been important to natives for centuries. It tells them when to start planting their most important food crop – rice.
DB: To find out which birds from your area spend part of their year in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, come to today’s show at earthsky.com. Special thanks today to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.
To see a list and map of these bird migrations, visit:
here and here. (US Fish and Wildlife)
More information about Peregrine Falcons (US Fish and Wildlife)
More information about the yellow wagtail:
Tom Harrison, World Within: A Borneo Story, Oxford University Press, 1959.
The following individuals were interviewed for today’s show. Our thanks to:
Fran Mauer
Wildlife Biologist
USFWS
Fairbanks, AK
Bruce Woods
External Affairs Officer
USFWS
Anchorage, AK
Cathy Curby
Wildlife Biologist
USFWS
Fairbanks, AK
Author’s Notes:
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is one of the most pristine wilderness areas in the world. It’s sometimes called “America’s Refuge.” It’s bordered by Canada to the east and the Beaufort Sea [BO fort] to the north. Some of the bird migrators who end up in ANWR during the summer include Snow Geese from California, Tundra Swans from Maryland, Sandhill Cranes from New Mexico, Bohemian Waxwings from Colorado and Horned Grebes from Rhode Island. Every U.S. state except Hawaii sends at least one representative to the refuge each year.
It’s not just U.S. states that host birds from ANWR. That claim extends to most of North America. According to wildlife biologist Fran Mauer: “Yes, there are some species of birds that spend the summer in the Arctic Refuge and then migrate to Mexico for the winter. Some examples: Red-throated loon, short-eared owl, spotted sandpiper, black-bellied plover, ruddy turnstone, green-winged teal.”
The Borneo Connection
Rice is the most important crop for natives (known as the Kelabit) in the interior of Borneo. Rice requires intense attention for two or three months, and some attention for a few more months each year. It’s also important to plant and harvest the rice at just the right time of year, because of finch-like birds called munias. The birds, writes the British explorer Tom Harrison, “in hordes descend upon the rice grain. Despite all the devices of man, woman and child, in big munia years these birds are so many, so hungry, that nothing will keep them from devastating the crops.” So it’s critical that the rice is harvested before the munias arrive.
Just as a bird can spell disaster for the natives, another bird provides a tool to ensure their success. That bird is the yellow-wagtail – which migrates to Borneo from Manchuria, Alaska, Formosa, and Siberia. The arrival of yellow-wagtails on Borneo signals that it is the right time of year to plant rice. Because of the weather here, the birds are more accurate than the sun or stars for keeping time.
According to Tom Harrison, “on the Plain of Bah the mountains build so much cloud that the sun may be unseen except as a general brightness, day after day after day. This similarly confounds the regular study of stars … Bario has devised a separate system, based on the fact that an extraordinary wealth of migratory birds use this hole in high jungle as a blissful resting place on journeys further south from places almost unimaginably north. These birds, of which there are many, come in a fairly regular succession. A few have been selected as the best indicators. Around these few the Kelabit calendar is fixed. … As these birds come each year on a solar rhythm and as the Kelabit is concerned with their relation to the overall ‘climate’ as it affects rice locally, this calendar has proved consistent and satisfactory over centuries.”
Additional Teacher Resources
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service?Alaska: Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge, Birds
This report explores the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge within the larger Arctic Refuge. Tetlin provides habitat for 143 breeding and 47 migrating bird species, and serves as a major migration corridor for many of the bird species that enter or leave the interior of Alaska.
University of Connecticut, Arctic Circle Education: Birds in the Arctic Refuge
During the brief arctic summer, the Arctic Refuge is home to millions of birds. Many come to nest and raise their young. Others come to molt or simply pass through on migration. This report explains the migratory phenomenon and provides maps of the migratory patterns of many species.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service? Alaska: Which Birds May Travel From the Arctic Refuge To of Through Your Area?
Each summer birds use the Arctic Refuge to nest, raise young, feed, or rest. They then migrate to destinations in the States and beyond. This site provides maps that show migratory patterns of birds that are may be near your students school.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Renowned for its wildlife, the Arctic Refuge is inhabited by 45 species of land and marine mammals ranging from the pygmy shrew to bowhead whale. Eight million acres of Arctic Refuge are designated wilderness, and three rivers are designated wild rivers. Perhaps the most unique feature of the refuge is that large-scale ecological and evolutionary processes continue here, free of human control or manipulation. This report provides an overview of the natural history of the Refuge and the prominent flora and fauna within it.
