In the fall of each year, for as long as I can remember, I find myself looking up to search the skies for those long, wavering v-shaped formations of ducks and geese honking and flying their way south. Each time I do see a flock of ducks or geese fly over, I feel a sense of sadness somewhat akin to loneliness. It’s hard to explain such a feeling. Perhaps it is caused, in part, because summer is at an end and the thought of a long winter lies ahead. But there is more to it. It is a more internal sadness. I guess it’s because, deep down inside, I know the natural world around us is in a continual state of change – change, I’m afraid, that’s not for the better.
It is instinct that drives migratory waterfowl to fly south for the winter and return each spring. Instinct strong enough to compel them to fly towards ever-changing wintering grounds only to return in spring to often-altered nesting and rearing areas. They do so because they have no alternative. They are, quite simply, biologically engineered to migrate north each spring and south each fall as countless generations have done before. It is their life cycle.
I remember, as a kid growing up on the Prairies, standing on the back steps with my whole family, as did all our neighbours, and looking up as tens of thousands of silhouetted ducks and geese flew overhead for what seemed hours. Years later I had the opportunity to fly in a Cessna airplane above Delta Marsh in Manitoba, the largest known migratory bird stationing area on the planet, and look down at hundreds of thousands of ducks and geese with their wings shimmering in the sunlight. It was a spectacle I shall never forget.
Since both those experiences, the natural habitat of far too many waterfowl populations has been altered dramatically.
Marshlands have been drained to create land for both agriculture and development. Pollution, climate change and human encroachment have all taken their toll. And yet, the annual migrations continue - at least for now.
Scientifically speaking, ducks and geese, as well as other migratory birds, know when it is time to begin their migration south because they recognize and interpret certain clues from their environment such as the change in length of the days, weather and seasonal reduction in food sources. Depending on the species, ducks and geese migrate all over the United States, Central and South America.
I always find it fascinating that ducks and geese fly in their v-shaped formations for such a specific reason. According to scientists, it is because the lead bird of the formation breaks the air and creates an updraft which reduces air resistance for the next bird, which in turn reduces the resistance for the next and so on – with the lead position changing regularly to prevent individual birds from becoming exhausted. By flying in such a formation, it is estimated they use 50 to 70 per cent less energy. Pretty amazing.
While I know the numbers of migratory waterfowl will never be what they are when I was a child a half century ago, I also know their numbers are not in any real immediate danger.
I do, however, have some worries because I know that we, as a species, seem so damned determined to interfere with nature at the expense of so many wild creatures. What a shame it would be to look up into the autumn skies and not hear the distant honking of geese or see their familiar wavering v-shaped formations. It would be a sadness far greater than that of summer’s end or the thought of the long winter that lies ahead.
Although there may be a tinge of sadness, I am still and forever grateful for each fall and each opportunity to look up and see those wavering Vs as the honk their way south.