Migratory Birds & Flyways
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Bird migration is one of the great wonders of the natural world. A huge variety of birds make the journey: the tiny Rufous Hummingbird migrates up and down the North American continent, while the Arctic Tern, BirdLife’s emblem, migrates from pole to pole. In fact, roughly one in five bird species migrate.
Birds know no borders
Migration is a huge feat of endurance requiring great strength and stamina. However, today birds face additional threats caused by human activity. Hungry, exhausted birds may arrive at a stopover site, only to find that it has been destroyed by farming or urbanisation. Every year, millions of birds are illegally killed by hunters, or collide with man-made structures such as powerlines. And climate change is causing habitats to shift or disappear.
Flyways
When travelling between their breeding and wintering grounds, birds don’t choose their paths at random. They follow set routes that include suitable habitats where they can stop to rest and refuel along the way. Many different species share broadly similar routes, which have been loosely split into eight major flyways – think of them as bird super-highways across the sky. BirdLife links together conservation organisations in countries along the length of the flyways, combining resources and coordinating action to protect birds on every step of their route. Our Flyways Programme focuses on protecting birds across all major global flyways.
Americas Flyway: three flyways that connect North America with Caribbean and Central and South America
African-Eurasian Flyway: three flyways that connect Europe and northern Asia with Mediterranean, Middle East, and Africa
Central Asian Flyway: connects northern Asia with southern Asia and Middle East
East Asian-Australasian Flyway: connects north-east Asia with south-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
For more information about the Flyways consult the BirdLife DataZone: The Flyway Concept
Key Aims
The key aims of this programme are:
- To save threatened migratory species from extinction by addressing main threats and conserve key sites and habitats which will be beneficial to a wider set of migratory species.
- To address landscape-scale barriers to migration, especially illegal and unsustainable killing of birds and the proliferation of poorly-planned energy and power transmission infrastructure.
- To conserve networks of critical stop-over sites through action on the ground by our Local Conservation Groups.
- To strengthen local and national capacity in the stop-over sites by strengthening the collaboration between BirdLife Partners.
- To understand and address the wider land-use issues facing migratory birds through targeted research and policy work.
