What do you think?
Rate this book
Long Hops: Making Sense of Bird Migration
In Long Hops, physicist Mark Denny explains, in a clear, conversational style, the science of bird migration―from the intricacies of bird aeronautics to the newly unraveled mysteries of their magnetic compasses. While providing wherever possible examples of indigenous Hawaiian species, the book surveys the migration phenomenon as a whole, showing that birds are breathtaking works of engineering with spectacular capabilities for long-distance flights. Each year thousands of these hardy migrants fly 2,500 miles nonstop from Alaska to Hawai‘i. How do they endure such marathon journeys, and how on earth do they know which direction to travel over featureless ocean? In fact, many migratory journeys, in all parts of the world and performed by birds as small as warblers and as large as swans, cover much longer distances.
After answering the “who, why, where, when” questions, Denny focuses on the questions of how : how researchers study bird migration; how they gather data from old-fashioned bird banding, high-tech satellite tracking, and other techniques; and―above all―how the birds do it. Throughout the book, concepts such as the physics of bird flight and the role of physical geography on navigation are explained in a relatively math-free way. Denny also examines past adaptations migrating birds have made to changing environments and the challenges they face in the future, as the world beneath them faces rapid climate change exacerbated by human activity.
After answering the “who, why, where, when” questions, Denny focuses on the questions of how : how researchers study bird migration; how they gather data from old-fashioned bird banding, high-tech satellite tracking, and other techniques; and―above all―how the birds do it. Throughout the book, concepts such as the physics of bird flight and the role of physical geography on navigation are explained in a relatively math-free way. Denny also examines past adaptations migrating birds have made to changing environments and the challenges they face in the future, as the world beneath them faces rapid climate change exacerbated by human activity.
256 pages, Paperback
Published September 30, 2016
2 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Mark Denny
22 books13 followersStarted writing in 2005, after 20 years working for a living...In fact, writing is work, of course, but I mean that I like it a lot more than the 9-to-5 grind of my office job (research engineer for a multinational aerospace corporation).
Ingenium was my first book, and I guess it shows, but I still have a great fondness for it. I was approached out of the blue by the editor of Johns Hopkins University Press who had seen a bunch of my published papers on historically important machines--he thought they could form the basis of an interesting popular science book. So I wrote it; the reviews were kind. I've recently completed my tenth book.
Ingenium was my first book, and I guess it shows, but I still have a great fondness for it. I was approached out of the blue by the editor of Johns Hopkins University Press who had seen a bunch of my published papers on historically important machines--he thought they could form the basis of an interesting popular science book. So I wrote it; the reviews were kind. I've recently completed my tenth book.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 16, 2018
Very awesome presentation of migration, what goes into it,how birds migrate, some of the science behind it. This review will be lengthy as I like to highlight several parts that struck me.
c* 40 % of birds migrate
*Hummingbirds have heart rates up to 1,000 bpm. They migrate around 500 miles over 20 hours. They double their body weight to prepare.
*Almost all birds flying long distances have black wing tips (the melanin pigmentation responsible for dark coloring also strengthens feathers).
*American Robins migrate when the isotherm is exactly 38 degrees.
*Loop migration is when the north south route is not the same and the south north route. This could be due to different seasonal winds, etc, going a certain direction. Thus you may have a bird pass thro your yard only one direction of migration.
* Some birds fly nonstop at high speed, some fly 20 miles per day. Small migrants fly alone.
*Night migration is cooler and safer. Day migrants include hawks and vultures, which need the thermals that arise when the sun heats the land. Swallows and swifts feed during flight on insects, and they also migrate by day. Long distance migrants, ie hummingbird and Robin, must travel day and night.
*Shorebirds beat their wings continuously, passerines flap intermittently.
*If you put a migratory bird in a cage, he will get restless at the time of migration and will hop about in the direction he should be migrating in. He will do it for a period of time corresponding with the duration of the migratory journey.
*Birds developed flight, possibly due to pouncing upon prey from a tree, gliding from tree to tree, bipedal running and jumping to catch airborne insects prey, running up trees or over water to escape predators, or nesting in trees to avoid predators.
*Birds may glide after flapping, or may bound. Bounding is folding the wings and cutting thro the air like an arrow.
*The wakes induced by the rapid wing bests of small birds are too complicated for simple V formation to be beneficial.
*Some seabirds such as pelicans can exploit the ocean waves to fly very close to the surface. The waves supply an updraft that the soaring birds exploit.
*The bird heart is 6 times larger than the human heart (relative to body size), beating 500 bpm.
*A bird that can sense polarized light can tell the position of the sun even if the sun is not visible. Therefore, they can work out their orientation during migration.
*The wind rises near the equator but does not move much horizontally, thus it is very calm, this are is the doldrums. (that's where the figure of speech comes from!)
*Birds (tho not owls) use four primary colors (we use three).
*Raptors have 2 areas of high acuity in vision, whereas we only have one.
*Many birds posses a few tools (they need more than one in case the environment does not cooperate) such as a sun compass, polarized light compass, star compass (night migrants learn their astronomy in the nest!), magnetic inclination compass and magnetic polarity compass.They need a compass and a map for true navigation. (some migrate using dead reckoning or piloting which is remembering land marks)
*For migration, many organs shrink to save weight - sexual organs, gizzard, liver.
*A Barwit flew directly 7,270 miles over 8 day sat an aver age speed of 35mph.
* Many species have been divided, ie the Eastern and Western bluebirds, and they used to be one species. This happened when there were advances and retreats of ice.
c* 40 % of birds migrate
*Hummingbirds have heart rates up to 1,000 bpm. They migrate around 500 miles over 20 hours. They double their body weight to prepare.
*Almost all birds flying long distances have black wing tips (the melanin pigmentation responsible for dark coloring also strengthens feathers).
*American Robins migrate when the isotherm is exactly 38 degrees.
*Loop migration is when the north south route is not the same and the south north route. This could be due to different seasonal winds, etc, going a certain direction. Thus you may have a bird pass thro your yard only one direction of migration.
* Some birds fly nonstop at high speed, some fly 20 miles per day. Small migrants fly alone.
*Night migration is cooler and safer. Day migrants include hawks and vultures, which need the thermals that arise when the sun heats the land. Swallows and swifts feed during flight on insects, and they also migrate by day. Long distance migrants, ie hummingbird and Robin, must travel day and night.
*Shorebirds beat their wings continuously, passerines flap intermittently.
*If you put a migratory bird in a cage, he will get restless at the time of migration and will hop about in the direction he should be migrating in. He will do it for a period of time corresponding with the duration of the migratory journey.
*Birds developed flight, possibly due to pouncing upon prey from a tree, gliding from tree to tree, bipedal running and jumping to catch airborne insects prey, running up trees or over water to escape predators, or nesting in trees to avoid predators.
*Birds may glide after flapping, or may bound. Bounding is folding the wings and cutting thro the air like an arrow.
*The wakes induced by the rapid wing bests of small birds are too complicated for simple V formation to be beneficial.
*Some seabirds such as pelicans can exploit the ocean waves to fly very close to the surface. The waves supply an updraft that the soaring birds exploit.
*The bird heart is 6 times larger than the human heart (relative to body size), beating 500 bpm.
*A bird that can sense polarized light can tell the position of the sun even if the sun is not visible. Therefore, they can work out their orientation during migration.
*The wind rises near the equator but does not move much horizontally, thus it is very calm, this are is the doldrums. (that's where the figure of speech comes from!)
*Birds (tho not owls) use four primary colors (we use three).
*Raptors have 2 areas of high acuity in vision, whereas we only have one.
*Many birds posses a few tools (they need more than one in case the environment does not cooperate) such as a sun compass, polarized light compass, star compass (night migrants learn their astronomy in the nest!), magnetic inclination compass and magnetic polarity compass.They need a compass and a map for true navigation. (some migrate using dead reckoning or piloting which is remembering land marks)
*For migration, many organs shrink to save weight - sexual organs, gizzard, liver.
*A Barwit flew directly 7,270 miles over 8 day sat an aver age speed of 35mph.
* Many species have been divided, ie the Eastern and Western bluebirds, and they used to be one species. This happened when there were advances and retreats of ice.
July 19, 2019
Very interesting. If you are interested in migration, look no further.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews