Do migratory birds fly to warmer places when it gets too cold or vice versa?

Answer

Bye Cedric

sorry it took you a while to get an answer!

It is almost always the case that migratory birds look for warmer places in the winter, but ‘warm’ is relative! Most migratory birds that stay with us (Western Europe) in the summer, migrate south during the winter. So to warmer places (Mediterranean area, North Africa,…). But many geese stay in Scandinavia during the summer and come to us during the winter. Here it is ‘warmer’ for them! The reason is of course that geese can withstand the cold, but they must be able to graze grass. In large parts of Scandinavia the meadows are covered with snow for months, so geese cannot eat. With us there is much less snow cover, so geese can survive the winter here, even if it is cold in our opinion. That’s why you may have thought that these migratory birds migrated to colder places! Of course you can immediately see that climate changes (eg more snow during the winter in Western Europe) can strongly influence the migratory behavior of these birds: they will have to migrate much further south!

Finally, a remark about ‘overkill’: certain birds (some terns, swallows) migrate much further south than necessary in winter: all the way across the African continent to South Africa. They don’t have to travel that far to survive… It’s one of nature’s remaining mysteries!

kind regards

Koen Martens