More than 50 million migratory birds are currently leaving their breeding grounds in Bavaria to overwinter in southern climes. According to the State Association for Bird and Nature Conservation (LBV) on Monday, another 300 million migratory birds from the north are crossing the Free State these days. Next weekend, as part of the Europe-wide “Eurobirdwatch” campaign, the association is inviting people to experience the spectacle with many activities.
Bird migration is not only an impressive natural spectacle, it is sometimes life-threatening for the animals. Birds are still being hunted in some countries, resting places are being drained or cut down, according to the LBV. You need good reasons to go on the journey. Insect eaters in particular do not find enough food in Bavaria in the colder months. Swifts, house martins and whinchats traveled as so-called long-distance migrants to areas south of the Sahara.
In some species such as robins and blackbirds, a kind of shift change can be observed. The animals from Bavaria overwintered in Italy or on the Iberian Peninsula. To do this, members of the same species from Northern and Eastern Europe come to the Free State. LBV bird expert Angelika Nelson described the flight formations of the starlings as particularly fascinating. After the breeding phase, some of them formed a swarm of more than 1,000 animals. Even when changing direction, the individual birds never collided. Each star pays attention to up to seven neighbors during the flight. This creates the image of a uniformly moving black cloud. In this way, the starlings protected themselves from predators such as peregrine falcons.