David C. Seeley, age 12, of Fredericton, .B., for his question:
What are the bird flyways of North America?
In this age of air travel the plane traffic upstairs must be organized. There are higher and lower lanes in which the planes must fly in this or that direction. But organized air traffic is nothing new to the bird world. They have been using certain well traveled flyways for thousands of years.
Every fall, countless birds of North America gather for the long flight south to their summer homes. Come spring they will return northward and scatter out to their nesting ground across the land. In most cases the migration trips are well organized and the birds follow the routes used by their ancestors for thousands of generations.
The shy little woodcock follows the route of his ancestors, though he makes the journey alone without any guidance from his parents. Other birds fly with flocks of friends. Some of the travelers are old timers who have traveled the routes many times. The geese and ducks follow a leader and fly in a neat V formation.
When a migration route is traveled by hosts of different birds, we call it a flyway and in North America there are four of these bird flyways. Though the general direction is north and south, the traffic may swoop in detours to the past or west. There are also many side lanes and meeting points. The bobolinks which nest in Vancouver fly east to the Mississippi and join their relatives in Florida for the rest of their journey.
The Pacific flyway runs from the shores of Alaska down to Mexico. It covers a broad area between the Pacific Ocean and the high Rockies. The Mississippi flyway runs from the Artic Circle due south to Mexico.
The popular Central flyway runs from the Hudson Bay region to the Gulf of Mexico: The Atlantic flyway sweeps from the eastern shores of Canada along tie shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
The migrating flocks do most of their flying at night sometimes a half a mile or even a mile above the earth. The daytime is spent in resting and feeding: We are not sure how the feathery travelers are guided, but same birds have been known to vary their ancient routes. This may be because the hungry travelers veer off in search of food.
Not all the migrators stick to the well beaten paths of the flyways. Golden plovers summering north of Hudson Bay fly east to Nova Scotia and due south over the Atlantic. The Arctic terns summering in the Arctic islands, flies southeast to Africa and then south to Antarctica either by way of the African or the South American shores.