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Migration; The Mississippi Flyway

© Glenda Gibbons

Last month, we familiarized ourselves slightly with the "flyways" of the western hemisphere. While migration "routes" can be defined as the actual highways that are traveled, the word "flyway" includes the migration route within its repetitively and broadly traveled borders. The first flyway that we looked at is called the Atlantic flyway. We also found that the Atlantic flyway merges into another major route called the Mississippi flyway.

Believe it or not, birds actually have a strategy to their migration flights or patterns. Some species will break up their travels into smaller trips (for example, 200 mile flights per trek) across certain parts of the country. They'll meet up with larger groups of other birds, all the same species, and then make the final flight together. Some migratory flights total epic proportions of 7000 miles or more. Gives a whole different meaning to the term: birdbrain, hmmm?

The Mississippi Flyway

The borders of all the flyways, including the Mississippi flyway are not sharply defined. By the time the areas reach down into their southernmost parts; Panama for example, all four of the flyways merge into one. The Mississippi flyway is a major route for migratory waterfowl of all sorts. Imagine that it is bordered on the east by the peninsula of southern Ontario down to western Lake Erie. There is a southwestern pattern that crosses Ohio and Indiana to the Mississippi river where it runs closely along the shore to the river's mouth. Western boundaries are not quite so easily defined, therefore it is noted that the Mississippi flyway merges into the Central Flyway. In fact, the Mississippi flyway has the longest migration route of any in the Western Hemisphere. Shorebirds are the ones who perform the tedious journey, traversing the entire length of the flyway up to northern Canada, Alaska, and the Yukon. It is a 3000 mile distance from the Mackenzie to the Mississippi delta; a route that is uninterrupted by mountainous country. The greatest land elevation is less than 2000 feet above sea level. The route is abundant in water and timber. Both of the rivers that mark it, empty into the Gulf of Mexico, giving the entire passage a north-and-south directional feeling.

The Mississippi flyway is an important route used by ducks, geese, blackbirds, warblers, sparrows, thrushes, and of course, shorebirds of all kinds. It has been noted that most North American land birds who seek winter homes in the tropics, use this flyway, and then use a shortcut that takes them across the Gulf of Mexico.

Mississippi flyway covers the longest distance

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