One bird to rule them all: celebrate Fat Bird Week in Wisconsin

Well, how about that eclipse, huh? Like many of you, I was disappointed that we weren’t able to see it due to cloud cover. But I did see a lot of cool photos of it.

I learned about something new this week: April 19–26 will be the first-ever Fat Bird Week in Wisconsin. Similar to the National Park Service’s Fat Bear Week, Fat Bird Week is meant to draw attention to the importance of fat as fuel for migratory birds. This event, hosted by the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin (NRFW), invites people to vote for their favorite chunky bird in a bracketstyle competition. Of the eight competitors, one bird will be named the Fat Bird champion. Hang with me here, because I have some very interesting bird trivia coming up.

Fat Bird Week celebrates Wisconsin’s native birds by highlighting the amazing ways birds’ bodies change in preparation for migration, and encouraging people to support the native bird species in their area.

The eight competitors this year are: the “plump” pine warbler, “top heavy” tree swallow, “hefty” horned lark, “dumpy” darkeyed junco, “gluttonous” golden-crowned kinglet, “bountiful” barn swallow, “rotund” ruby-crowned kinglet and “chonky” Canada warbler. Photos and descriptions of each of the birds are available at wisconservation.org/ fat-bird-week/.

Voting for your favorite bird will open at 9 a.m. on April 19 and remain open for 48 hours. The top four birds will advance to the next round of voting, which will start at 9 a.m. on April 21. The final round of voting will take place on April 26. The winner will be announced via a free webinar, “Four Ways to Keep Wisconsin’s Birds Fat and Healthy,” on April 30, but more on that later.

So, what’s so cool about fat birds?

Well, birds can gain an enormous amount of weight to enable them to complete the migration journey. Here are some fascinating facts, courtesy of the NRFW, the National Audubon Society and Kaytee.com: -- In preparation for migration, many birds will pack on 50-100% of their body weight to store up enough energy for their long journey. This process is known as hyperphagia. When days shorten at the end of summer, birds will spend two weeks or more gorging themselves on high-energy berries and fruits loaded with carbohydrates and lipids, which are stored as fat.

“Fat contains twice as much energy in it than carbs or protein. It is also a lot lighter and less bulky, perfect for the tiny birds that require heaps of lightweight energy for their long-distance travels,” writes Emma Schatz for the NRFW. “After bulking up, both the blackpoll and the Connecticut warbler will embark on a two- to three-day non-stop flight over the Atlantic Ocean towards their South American wintering grounds!”

As the most famous example, the rubythroated hummingbird, which weighs on average 3 grams for a male, can double its body mass prior to the 2,000-mile journey it makes twice a year. The bird truly needs all its fat stores, because it has the highest metabolism of any animal on earth. A ruby-throated hummingbird requires the human equivalent of more than 150,000 calories every day to power its heart and wings, which beat at 1,000 and 3,000 times per minute, respectively.

-- The weight that birds gain prior to migration must be evenly distributed across the body frame.

“To make it all fit, many birds are able to shrink and grow their internal organs,” Kevin Johnson writes for the Audubon Society.

For example, the bar-tailed godwit flies 6,800 miles nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand every fall. To make room for fat, godwits absorb into their body 25% of the tissue making up the liver, kidneys and digestive tract. This happens through the natural cellular process known as autophagy. Their heart and chest muscles also grow to distribute extra energy and oxygen as they fly.

-- Birds also are able cut back on their sleep time to allow them to travel farther, faster. Swainson’s thrushes, which travel roughly 3,000 miles from Central and South America to Canada and Alaska, enter a sleeplike state for approximately nine seconds at a time. One half of their brain remains awake to avoid predators or collisions while the other half of the brain rests.

-- “When endurance athletes exhaust their carbohydrate and fat supplies, they face dehydration and starvation. For humans, those needs can put an end to any athletic performance. But birds have a last-ditch backup: They can burn their muscles for energy, a trick that some birds use to their advantage,” Johnson writes.

Experiments done on Swainson’s thrushes in a wind tunnel showed that they would sometimes burn muscle unnecessarily to fly farther and reach the most beneficial stopover sites. These thrushes typically fly up to 200 miles in a single stint. -- Wisconsin is one of the most popular migratory destination states. During May, it is estimated that 3 million birds cross the Wisconsin border daily as they migrate back to their homes. However, on heavy migration days, there can be as many as 30 million birds coming into Wisconsin per day.

-- Birds in migration can travel as far as 16,000 miles, with some traveling at speeds of 30 mph. At this speed it would take a bird up to 533 hours to reach its final destination. Traveling eight hours a day, it would take some birds 66 days to reach their migration destination.

It’s incredible how these little athletes of the air were created in such a way to thrive and do exactly what they are supposed to do to make their journey every year.

To learn more about migrating birds, register for the webinar happening April 30 at noon at wisconservation.org/fat-birdweek/. The webinar will cover what you can do to keep the state’s native bird population “fat, healthy and flying.” The best way to support Wisconsin’s bird population is to plant native plants.

“Plants native to your area will harbor far more insect food, provide more nutritious fruits, and supply the seeds or nectar that native birds need,” said Ryan Brady, Wisconsin DNR conservation biologist.

Striking a

Chord...