These tiny birds fly up to 13,000 kilometres and still reunite in the same part of Africa | – The Times of India
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These tiny birds fly up to 13,000 kilometres and still reunite in the same part of Africa
|TOI Lifestyle Desk | etimes.in|Jun 30, 2026, 20:58 IST
Every autumn, billions of birds quietly vanish from the skies of Europe and begin long, gruelling journeys south toward Africa. Among them is the pied flycatcher a small, black-and-white songbird weighing just 12 grams, roughly the same as a few paperclips. These little birds can travel anywhere between 3,000 and 13,000 kilometres to reach their wintering grounds in West Africa. What makes them remarkable is not just the distance they cover, but what happens when they get there. Birds that bred together in the Netherlands tend to end up wintering near each other in Africa. Birds from Spain cluster together separately. Somehow, after flying across entire continents and oceans, these birds find themselves back among their own kind in the right part of Africa, in the right area, as if following a map only they can read. A major new study published in Sciencehas finally uncovered how they do it, and the answer involves both genes and the environment in which a bird grows up.Tired of too many ads?go ad free now
What is the pied flycatcher, and why did scientists choose it for this migration study
The pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) is one of Europe’s most studied migratory songbirds, partly because it is common and widespread, and partly because it breeds in nest boxes that make it easy for researchers to monitor. It breeds across a huge range from Spain and Portugal in the west, all the way to western Siberia in the east and winters in West Africa. Despite decades of research, one big question had never been properly answered: how do individual birds from different breeding populations end up wintering in different, predictable parts of Africa, year after year?The study, led by Koosje Lamers and Janne Ouwehand from the University of Groningen, is published inScience. It is the most comprehensive tracking study ever done on this species, following flycatchers from eight countries across their entire breeding range and using a clever egg-swapping experiment to pull apart what is learned from what is inherited.
How researchers tracked flycatchers across eight countries and an entire continent
The team fitted pied flycatchers from eight different countries with small dataloggers, lightweight tracking devices that record light levels and use that data to calculate the bird’s location as it moves. From Spain to Siberia, they followed where each bird went after leaving its breeding area in autumn. The tracking revealed something striking: despite coming from very different starting points across Europe, all the populations took the same initial route. Every single population first flew to the Iberian Peninsula, Spain and Portugal in the early autumn before continuing south into Africa.This shared detour to the Iberian Peninsula is itself a puzzle. For birds breeding in Sweden or Siberia, flying southwest to Spain before heading south into Africa is a significant detour from the most direct route. The researchers believe this could be an evolutionary remnant a route that made geographical sense during the last ice ages, when Europe’s landscape looked very different, and that has been genetically locked in ever since, even though it is no longer the most efficient path.Tired of too many ads?go ad free now
The egg-swap experiment that revealed the role of genes in migration
The most ingenious part of the study was a translocation experiment moving eggs from the Netherlands to nest boxes in Sweden, so that Dutch chicks would hatch and grow up among Swedish foster families in a completely different environment. When those chicks were old enough, the researchers tracked where they went for winter.The results were telling. The Dutch chicks raised in Sweden did not simply copy Swedish birds and winter where Swedish flycatchers typically winter. Nor did they go exactly where full Dutch birds winter. Instead, they ended up somewhere in between their wintering location was a mix of what Swedish and Dutch birds would normally choose. This shows clearly that genes play a real role in determining where a bird ends up in Africa, but so does the environment in which it hatches and grows up. Both factors leave an imprint on the bird’s internal compass.Tired of too many ads?go ad free now
Importantly, the study also showed that young flycatchers do not learn their migration route by watching their parents. The chicks leave for Africa later in the season than the adults so they cannot follow them. Whatever knowledge they carry for the journey, they carry it from birth, not from observation.
Why all pied flycatchers first fly to Spain before heading to Africa
One of the more unexpected findings from the tracking data was just how universal the Iberian detour is. No matter where in Europe a pied flycatcher breeds, it goes to Spain or Portugal first. For a bird from eastern Siberia, this means adding thousands of extra kilometres to what is already a very long journey.Lead researcher Lamers suggests this behaviour may be an evolutionary holdover from when Europe’s ice sheets forced ancestral flycatchers to use the Iberian Peninsula as a key staging point during their migration. Over thousands of years, this route became genetically encoded, passed down generation after generation, even after the ice retreated and more direct routes to Africa became geographically available. It is a remarkable example of how evolutionary history can leave traces in the behaviour of modern animals long after the original reason for that behaviour has disappeared.Tired of too many ads?go ad free now
What this means for how migratory birds might cope with climate change
Beyond answering a long-standing scientific question, the study has real implications for understanding how migratory birds can or cannot adapt to a warming world. Climate change is already affecting the timing of many ecological events in Europe, including when insects emerge and when trees leaf out. For migratory birds, arriving at the right time to match these peaks in food availability is critical for breeding success.Whether a flycatcher can shift its timing to arrive earlier in spring depends partly on where in Africa it spent the winter. Birds wintering in different parts of West Africa experience different conditions and therefore depart at different times. If a bird’s wintering location is largely genetically fixed, it may struggle to adjust its schedule quickly enough to keep pace with a changing climate. The discovery that both genes and early environment shape wintering location suggests there is some flexibility in the system, but not unlimited flexibility.Tired of too many ads?go ad free now
As Lamers noted, the finding that Dutch eggs raised in Sweden produced birds with intermediate wintering locations shows that new combinations of breeding area and wintering location can create a small but meaningful window of adaptability that could matter greatly as the climate continues to shift.Get the latest movie news, reviews, and celebrity updates. Download the TOI App.
The TOI Lifestyle Desk is a dynamic team of dedicated journalists… Read More
The TOI Lifestyle Desk is a dynamic team of dedicated journalists who, with unwavering passion and commitment, sift through the pulse of the nation to curate a vibrant tapestry of lifestyle news for The Times of India readers. At the TOI Lifestyle Desk, we go beyond the obvious, delving into the extraordinary. Consider us your lifestyle companion, providing a daily dose of inspiration and information. Whether you’re seeking the latest fashion trends, travel escapades, culinary delights, or wellness tips, the TOI Lifestyle Desk is your one-stop destination for an enriching lifestyle experience.Read Less
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