A Shearwater's Endless Summer

The first robins have arrived back north -- a sure sign of Spring on the horizon.

The first robins are always males, as they come before the females in order to establish territories. Like many birds, Robins eat bugs in the spring and summer, but they mostly live off of fruit in the winter.

The robins of Virginia and Maryland only fly as far South as Georgia or Florida, but thanks to new micro-transmitters, we now know that some birds are world-record holders in the migration department.

Sooty shearwaters have been electronically tracked flying across the entire Pacific Ocean in a figure-eight pattern while traveling a 40,000 mile (64,00 km) roundtrip migration.

For more information on the Tracking of Pacific Pelagics, see the terrific TOPP web site, which gives information on the tracking of sharks, whales, seals, birds, turtles, and fish as they roam the Pacific and beyond.

Whales, shark, tuna, seals, turtles, birds, and even insects migrate across and around the Atlantic and Indian oceans as well, and thanks to smaller and more power radio tranmitters we are learning more and more about how life is interconnected around the planet.

A study is going on right now to track the migration patterns of dragonflys as they migrate down the East Coast of the United States.

Though it is hard to believe, each dragonfly carries a small transmitter and battery that lets it transmit a signal for about a week, and though the signal only broadcasts about a mile, it is enough to give scientists data on where the dragonflys are going and where they stop along the way.
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