By some estimates, more than 40% of the birds that seasonally migrate in North America do so via the Mississippi Flyway. Large numbers of both land and water birds use this route, including ducks, geese, blackbirds, sparrows, and numerous shorebirds, along with the rare white pelicans that migrate right through Baton Rouge each year. Most of the birds on the flyway cut right across the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi Flyway is what has given the Gulf Barrier Islands some of the richest bird species diversity in the world. Won't those silly birds be surprised at the burning slick of death we oil consuming humans have turned the Gulf into! Won't they be startled when they land for one last rest in the Louisiana coastal marshes before flying across the Gulf, only to find themselves coated with oil and finding nothing living to eat. So, take some extra time to enjoy the sparrows and thrushes you see this summer, because you most likely won't see quite so many next year.
Bye Bye Mississippi Flyway? Other Unintended (but predictable) Consequences of the Oil Spill?
It may seem to have nothing to do flyways for avian influenza virus, but bear with me. In 1962 there was another flyway that revealed Soviet missiles in Cuba:
I came across this video showing thousands of migratory birds circling the Tribute in Lights yesterday. The birds were migrating along the Atlantic Flyway and were disoriented by the lights.
Branta ruficollis is endangered. The Red Breasted Goose International Working Group (RbGIWG, which is unpronounceable) has a new species action plan to save this critter.
Here's some info from Redbrested Goose Central:
Why, exactly, hasn't Mike Judge been crushed to death by a pile of awards and prize-money. That man is a prophet, literally, and Idiocracy is his fevered vision. Though, there will be no cheerful redemption at the end of our movie, more like the last generation living in heaps of oily garbage, eating each other or whatever and hopelessly swatting at the flies (O God, the flies*) and eventually killing themselves or succumbing to organ failure where they lay. I am very saddened to see the beginning...
*shudder