Migration, Animals and Humans

Migration, Animals and Humans

   While walking the dogs the other morning, I passed by the hummingbird feeders outside our door, fascinated by the overcrowded platform full of honeybees, desperately loading up on sugar for the coming cold.  The hummingbirds, of course, were long gone having left well over a month ago;  something inside them had told them it was time, time to move southward to warmer weather, this when the leaves had only begun to turn and our temperatures were still into the mimicking of late summer.

   So I belatedly picked up my copy of Migrations, a rather large photo book from National Geographic (which was based on their television series), and was surprised and awed at the number of species that migrate, a number far beyond the birds which move at night (some peregrine falcons travel over 15,000 miles annually, and when they dive, they can reach speeds of over 200 miles per hour), but a number that would include ants and elephants, crabs and sharks, antelope and jellyfish.  How wondrous to view this urge for movement, an uncanny almost uncontrollable drive that moves these animals onward and backyard, year after year...something that we humans used to do as well.

   From the book: Aside from studying where animals migrate to and from, there is the question of how...Most appear to use sight clues and their memory of landscape markers to guide them on their migratory route.  Beyond the obvious visual clues, many animals are able to see light that humans can't--ultraviolet, polarized, infrared--and they use these light clues, as well as a "sun compass," to guide them.  Even on cloudy days or before the sun rises and after it sets, polarized light can keep the migrants headed in the right direction.  Stars, too, light the way for many animals, particularly birds, which apparently have a star chart in their heads.  What is remarkable about this is their ability to make adjustments in their flight patterns as they head in any direction, recalibrating their direction to correct for the Earth's declination, and the change in the night sky as the seasons and the animals' latitudinal positions change.  Scientists have known for several decades that monarch butterflies, birds and other migrating animals actually have microscopic bits of magnetite--a magnetic ore-- in their bodies that sensitize them to the geomagnetic field. They "read" the Earth's geomagnetism and set their courses accordingly.  Odor, as well, may come into play with migrating animals...

   For many of the animals, there is little choice, even as they face new obstacles and fences, predators and thirst.  Those giving birth do so quickly, their babies often up and walking within a few minutes;  it is a necessity, the herd must keep moving.  The migratory patterns follow one another in order, one species nipping at the top dead grass exposing new leaves to grow, the next species chomping away at the new growth while breaking up and fertilizing the soil, the next species taking advantage of yet another new surge of greenery.  It is all an order, and early humans followed it as closely as the animals...they went where the water would be and where the warmer temperatures would be.  Where the animals would be.

   Today, human migrants (vs. immigrants) are held not in awe but in a view bordering on contempt.  For the most part, their reasons are not much different that those of the millions of animals.  Move to where the work is, work while one can, then move back.  Provide for one's family, survive.  But we may have much to learn from both these wandering humans as well as the eons of wandering animals.  As we settle into our warm houses and settle into a sedentary life, perhaps we're losing a drive that reaches into something ageless, something primal.  Perhaps losing a fear, a wonder, a change is also making us lose a communal sense of being, a camaraderie, a sense we once had.

   Are there chemicals in our brains that we once had (or perhaps still have) that we simply don't use, area that used to help us navigate the stars or know where the rivers once ran?  Perhaps there are so many blank areas in our brains simply because we've stopped using those parts (this is the subject of a fascinating talk on TED).  Perhaps migration is just one thing of many that happens before our eyes, millions of things moving into and out of our area, year after year, right before our eyes...only we don't see it happening.