Researchers have been trying for a very long time to figure out why it is that migratory songbirds normally take off during the night, but they have not been successful.
Now, the results of two separate studies reveal that the birds use the approach of night and the prospect of clear skies in the near future as cues to take flight.
The investigations, which were published in the journal Movement Ecology, made use of radio tracking devices and evaluated data from roughly 400 songbirds belonging to nine different migratory species, such as the yellow-rumped warbler, the American redstart, and the Bicknell’s thrush.