Instinct and the tempest: Navigating the internal and external forces of bird migration

“ But migration on the coast is by no means confined to the birds that habitually reside upon it. All the migratory species that dwell in inland districts must pass the coast on their annual journeys in spring and autumn. At these seasons, in suitable districts (of which we have already indicated the most favourable for observation) , birds may be watched day after day, and week after week, entering our area to render summer glad with their cheerful presence, passing along our shores to yet more distant destinations, or departing in autumn for warmer lands and sunnier skies. ”

“ No doubt the change of food, of air, of climate, is a source of enjoyment to the birds; nay, the very effort of the journey itself is probably accompanied with that gratification which is usually connected with the healthful, natural exercise of the higher powers of every living being. And how much delight do they afford mankind! Their first appearance, with the hopeful hours of spring; their voices, their pleasing forms, their cheerful movements, nay, their very departure in autumn, all bring to our hearts some pleasures, and thoughts, and feelings, which we should not know without them. ”

“ All the Limicolæ and other shore birds, as well as the Geese, Ducks, Divers, Gulls, and sea-fowl generally, move from north to south as a general rule, the sea-fowl at some distance at sea, the waders along the coast. Although so far we have no stations, excepting Heligoland, on the European coast of the North Sea, we may, I think, fairly presume that there is similarly another stream of birds passing down the coast-line of Europe. ”

“ This long journey, roughly 2500 miles at a flight, is used in autumn by several species of American shore birds, and the particular species most easily recognised, is the American golden plover, Charadrius dominicus [7] , which differs but little from our C. pluvialis [8] . An important point to notice is that the route followed in the fall is not the one used by the bird in spring, an undoubted proof that all routes are not identical with the original line of dispersal of the species. ”

“ I have been told by an old fen farmer that, many years ago, when a great gale swept the Lincolnshire coast, at the time the Hooded Crow crossed, the coast was subsequently strewed with their bodies cast up by the sea.
Birds are noticed at the stations as sometimes flying high, sometimes low; often it will be observed with northerly and easterly winds they will fly high, and with winds in opposite quarters, low. The state of weather at the time of migration has more, we think, to do with the height at which birds travel than the direction of the wind. ”

“ A storm is a new and in some respects more active life in nature. Larger migratory birds make their appearance. They at least sympathize with the movements of the watery element and the winds. I see two great fishhawks (possibly blue herons) slowly beating northeast against the storm,—by what a curious tie circling ever near each other and in the same direction, as if you might expect the very motes in the air to be paired, two long undulating wings conveying a feathered body through the misty atmosphere and thus inseparably associated with another planet of the same species. ”

“ On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale; ”

“ And if they are to grow to their full stature in any one man or woman, that man or woman must not be isolated, but must be one of a society where growth is not thwarted and made crooked.
The life of instinct, when it is unchecked by mind or spirit, consists of instinctive cycles, which begin with impulses to more or less definite acts, and pass on to satisfaction of needs through the consequences of these impulsive acts. Impulse and desire are not directed towards the whole cycle, but only towards its initiation: the rest is left to natural causes. ”

“ Instinct is the source of vitality, the bond that unites the life of the individual with the229 life of the race, the basis of all profound sense of union with others, and the means by which the collective life nourishes the life of the separate units. But instinct by itself leaves us powerless to control the forces of Nature, either in ourselves or in our physical environment, and keeps us in bondage to the same unthinking impulse by which the trees grow. ”

“ From this great mortality, however, naturalists have learnt much concerning the annual movements of birds; for the records kept by our light men, extending, as they do, over a number of years, of these fatalities and periodical visits of migrants, are most instructive and suggestive. Some of the scenes witnessed at these light-houses and vessels, during the seasons of migration—especially in autumn—are intensely interesting. These beacons are most fatal during cloudy weather; few birds strike on clear and cloudless nights. Odd birds are continually striking against the lanterns. ”

“ Mr Eagle Clarke says that the importance of winds is overstated, but as an incentive only. The direction of the wind has no influence as an incentive but its force is an important factor; in a strong wind a bird may be blown out of its course. Birds will not start in a high wind but may pass into the influence of strong winds which may affect both progress and direction. He adds that particular winds usually prevail during the season of great autumn movements, which are not incentives but are the result of pressure distribution which is favourable to migration. ”

“ Like most, if not all, members of the Auk family, the Puffin is not seen much near the land after the breeding season has passed. Indeed, it is very 146 doubtful whether the bird ever voluntarily seeks the coast after it leaves it in early autumn with its young; continued gales and storms will occasionally drive a bird even far inland, whilst rough weather often causes it to perish at sea, its remains being sometimes washed up in quantities. Its actions on the water are almost precisely the same as those of the Guillemot and Razorbill. It is an adept swimmer, a marvellous diver ”

“ At the Eddystone, where he spent a month in the autumn of 1901, he noticed birds passing at heights varying from 20 to 200 feet, all flying southwards, He concluded that "the Wind is certainly the main factor in migration meteorology I am convinced that the direction of the wind is, in itself, of no moment to the emigrants, for they flitted across the Channel southwards with winds from all quarters" (16) . When the velocity of the wind, however, was above 28 miles per hour (a fresh breeze, force 5 on the Beaufort scale) , no migration was observed. ”

“ A description of fogs, frequent in the latter part of Autumn: whence a digression, enquiring into the rise of fountains and rivers. Birds of season considered, that now shift their habitation. The prodigious number of them that cover the northern and western isles of Scotland. Hence a view of the country. A prospect of the discoloured, fading woods. After a gentle dusky day, moon-light. Autumnal meteors. Morning: to which succeeds a calm, pure, sun-shiny day, such as usually shuts up the season. The harvest being gatherd in, the country dissolved in joy. ”

“ The time of migration of any particular species extends over a considerable period; sometimes it is over in four or five weeks, in other cases going on for months, and even half a year; for, -67- practically, such birds as the Lark and Starling are migrating all the year round. ”

“ It should also be remarked that in some years birds are more numerous than others, and the duration of the migration of any particular species varies a good deal, sometimes lasting but a few weeks, sometimes as many months. The autumn migration of birds lasts for about five months, beginning in July, and continuing to November. Of the two seasons of passage, perhaps the autumn movement will prove the most interesting to the ordinary observer of bird-life on the coast. Birds are much more numerous in autumn, and travel slower. ”

“ Most, if not all, perform short migrations, in some cases only seasonal changes of altitude, spending summer on the hills and winter in the lowlands; examples, the red grouse and dipper. Others, like the tits and creepers are nomadic and more or less gregarious in the colder months. Few appear to remain in the same locality at all seasons, but possibly some of our British robins and song thrushes, both sub-species of migratory Continental forms, may be non-migratory.
2. Summer Residents: birds which nest in our islands, leaving in autumn for countries to the south, and return in spring. ”

“ Birds of Passage or Spring and Autumn Migrants: birds which neither nest with us nor normally remain for the winter, but merely use the British Islands as feeding and resting places on their journey between the northern breeding area and the southern or eastern winter quarters. This group is an especially difficult one, for in it must be included such birds as dunlins and curlews, which are represented as breeding species in Britain, and also a number of birds which apparently go no further south than our islands in winter, and others which, though not breeding, go no further north in summer. ”

“ Incredible although it may appear, we believe that the vast majority of the immigrants coming to us in the autumn in one broad front from east to west are such as cross with the intention of remaining the winter in some part or other of the British Islands, and naturally take the place of our own resident summer species which have left, or are about leaving us, for the south. ”

“ In every case the migration of a set species will continue, day by day, or week by week, till it attains the maximum by a "great rush," the main body passing, and then gradually falling off, till the migration of that species is completed.
Independent of the normal or ordinary migration, we have frequently local migrations, due to sudden changes of weather, or in search of fresh feeding-grounds. These "great rushes" of immigrants, coming helter-skelter on to our east coast, are often accompanied or followed very closely by outbursts of severe weather ”

“ The spring migration is also carried on much more leisurely, migrants proceeding by easy stages northward, and we have none of those great rushes which are so characteristic of the autumn migration, when, with sudden changes of weather, flock after flock pour continually during the whole day and night on to our east coast. In the spring also the males of the Insessores migrate some time in advance of the females, as is very clearly shown in the Heligoland notes, as well as by the well-known arrival of our summer immigrants, as the Nightingale, Whitethroat, &c. ”

“ Migration as observed on that island for many years points to the undoubted fact that the line followed by birds is, as a rule, from E. to W., and doubtless some portion of these Heligoland birds keep moving westward or south-westward, till eventually they strike our east coast. There are, however, many species which make Heligoland the western boundary of their autumn wanderings, and crossing, as they do, that island in enormous numbers, must eventually follow the coast-line to the south, for the simple reason that they never occur on our own coast, except as very rare or occasional wanderers ”

“ Taking this line as a basis, we find birds also occasionally coming from points north of east; but in the vast majority of instances the migration has had a decidedly southerly trend, coming from points south of east, and even direct from the southward. Again, there is in the autumn always a steady stream of migrants which closely follows the coast-line from N. to S., composed of birds either moving from more northerly districts of our islands, or of such immigrants coming from the east as strike the coast in more northern latitudes and then follow it to the south. ”

“ I have watched for hours flock after flock arriving on the east coast, coming directly from westward, Rooks, Starlings, Lapwings, and Snow Buntings, and keeping on in a direct westerly direction as far as the eye or a good glass were able to follow. Often, too, when on the hills, miles from the sea, I have seen migrating flocks passing inland. Larks in straggling flocks, carrolling cheerily as they pass; there is no bird which migrates so cheerily and light-heartedly as the Lark, ever ready to burst into song on the least occasion. ”

“ But in fact the opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory. Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive. Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realm, it is insight that first arrives at what is new. ”

“ They do not remain in action concurrently, but when the circumstances are appropriate for the yielding to one, the others automatically fall into the background, and the governing impulse is absolute master. Thus these instincts cannot be supposed at all frequently to conflict amongst themselves, and the animal possessing them alone, however highly developed his consciousness might be, would lead a life emotionally quite simple, for at any given moment he would necessarily be doing what he most wanted to do. ”

“ Many years ago, in a famous chapter of his Text Book of Psychology, William James analysed and established with a quite final delicacy and precision the way in which instinct appears to introspection. He showed that the impulse of an instinct reveals itself as an axiomatically obvious proposition, as something which is so clearly “sense” that any idea of discussing its basis is foolish or wicked.1
1 Not one man in a billion, when taking his dinner, ever thinks of utility. He eats because the food tastes good and makes him want more. ”

“ The intellect, however, is capable of delaying such response, and within limits of directing its path so that it may superficially show no relation to the stimulus of which it is the discharge. If we extend {244} the word stimulation to include the impulses arising from instinct, and grant that the delaying and deflecting influence of the intellect may be indefinitely enlarged, we have an animal in which instinct is as vigorous as in any of its primitive ancestors, but which is superficially scarcely an instinctive animal at all. Such is the case of man. ”

“ The deed, being ordained from without, may actually be unpleasant, and so be resisted from the individual side and yet be forced instinctively into execution. The instinctive act seems to have been too much associated in current thought with the idea of yielding to an impulse irresistibly pleasant to the body, yet it is very obvious that herd instinct at once introduces a mechanism by which the sanctions of instinct are conferred upon acts by no means necessarily acceptable to the body or mind. ”

“ Therefore (and I hope you keep the thread of logic through a long digression) , when I go as a man among caribou or wolves or plover or crows, and see the whole herd or pack or flock acting as one, as if swayed by a single will, I see no reason why I should evoke an incorporeal swarm impulse, or “call a spirit from the vasty deep” of the unknown to explain their similarity of action, since there are natural causes which may account for the matter perfectly—familiar causes, too, which still influence men and women as they influence the remote wood folk. ”

“ So when I see intelligent caribou or plover fleeing from an unsensed danger, and am told that they have received an impulse from without, I am bound to ask, “Where did that impulse come from, and who sent it?” For emotional impulses do not drop like rain from the clouds, or fall like apples from unseen trees; they must have their source in a living, intelligent being of some kind, who must feel the impulse before sending it to others. No other explanation is humanly comprehensible. ”

“ There is a kind of discipline which is necessary to almost all achievement, and which perhaps is not sufficiently valued by those who react against the purely external discipline of traditional methods. The desirable kind of discipline is the kind that comes from within, which consists in the power of pursuing a distant object steadily, foregoing and suffering many things on the way. This involves the171 subordination of impulse to will, the power of a directing action by large creative desires even at moments when they are not vividly alive. ”

“ The things that crush growth are those that produce a sense of impotence in the directions in which the vital impulse wishes to be effective. The worst things are those to which the will assents. Often, chiefly from failure of self-knowledge, a man’s will is on a lower level than his impulse: his impulse is towards some kind of creation, while his will is towards a conventional career, with a sufficient income and the respect of his contemporaries. The stereotyped illustration is the artist who produces shoddy work to please the public. ”