Bird migration is one of the most incredible phenomena on our planet and one we are still learning about. In the course of a single year, nearly all the Earth’s birds will migrate some distance, some as far as thousands of miles. How do they do it? How does a young bird know where to fly as he prepares to head to his winter home, a place he has never visited before? How do birds find their way back to their breeding grounds each year, navigating cities, forests, bodies of water and weather events. Environmental cues serve as the stimulus and the means of navigation during migration, with the reliance upon these cues varying according to the distance traveled and the location of the ‘vacation’ site. Join us for a look into the fascinating field of bird migration.
Professor Doug Robinson is an evolutionary behavioral ecologist whose teaching and research experiences have focused on organismal biology. He has taught classes on animal behavior, ecology, ornithology, vertebrate biology, and a course on conservation biology in New Zealand. The questions that guide his research revolve around how behavior is shaped by ecological and social environments.
