Cuckoo Reveals Secrets of Bird Migration and How They Navigate

First Posted: Nov 20, 2015 08:24 AM EST

The cuckoo is capable of finding its way from unknown locations. Now, though, researchers have taken a closer look at the cuckoo to better understand migratory birds.

In this latest study, 11 adult cuckoos were relocated from Denmark to Spain just before their winter migration to Africa was about to begin. When the birds were released more than 1,000 km away from their well-known migratory route, they still navigated towards the different stopover areas used along their normal route.

"The release site was completely unknown to the cuckoos, yet they had no trouble finding their way back to their normal migratory route. Interestingly, though, they aimed for different targets on the route, which we do not consider random," said Mikkel Willemoes, one of the researchers, in a news release. "This individual and flexible choice in navigation indicates an ability to assess advantages and disadvantages of different routes, probably based on their health, age, experience or even personality traits. They evaluate their own condition and adjust their reaction to it, displaying a complicated behavior which we were able to document for the first time in migratory birds."

In order to select an individual strategy, the birds should be able to balance perceived gains and risks of several different scenarios. This task would require knowledge of the current location in relation to all of the possible goals as well as distances to each of the goals. This tells the researchers that bird migration is actually a lot more complicated than previously thought.

"We have received remarkable details on the movement of adult birds," said Kasper Thorup, one of the researchers. "The next step is to develop smaller transmitters that will enable us to follow young cuckoos on a relocation flight. Without prior migration experience, their choices will reveal new insight on how they navigate from unknown locations."

The findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.

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Tagsbird, Birds, Migration, Cuckoo, Animal Behavior, Animals, Animal, Animal Trackers