Breaking Up These Two Birds-Not Gonna Happen

Science News v. 166, Oct. 9, 2004, p. 228, "Separate Vacations: Birds winter apart but return in sync" -- based on a report in the October 7 Nature,

I mention it here only as an accessible reference to a case of another amazing ability in living things. In addition to migrating long distances as the seasons change (as many birds do), some mating pairs of birds (in this case, black-tailed godwits) split up over the winter and then meet up again at the nesting site in the spring. In this case, while researchers discovered that "birds arrived over a period of about a month" they also "found that mates in 7 of 10 pairs ...arrived within 3 days of each other, even though these mates typically wintered about 1,000 km from each other...How the birds manage this timing isn't clear."

Until Next Time,

David Bump
Philippians 3: 13 Brethren, I
count not myself to have
apprehended: but [this] one thing
[I do], forgetting those things
which are behind, and reaching
forth unto those things which are
before, 14 I press toward the
mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus.

http://home.att.net/~david.bump