For centuries , hoi polloi in Europe did n’t really know where razz went during the winter . It ’s not their fault , they had a caboodle on that kept them from investigating the fade of other species . It ’s laborious to focus on " where did birb go ? " when you ’re working on your main task of dying of the pestilence .
The master possibility , which went all the path back to Aristotle and ancient Greece , was that birdshibernated during the winterand that summerredstarts turn themselves into winter robinsfor the colder month , while garden warblers turned into blackcap warblers .
As outlandish as these theories were , they were somehow better than other theories , such as that of seventeenth - century English scientist Charles Morton , who believed that theyflew to the Moon for wintertime , flying for 60 day at 201 kilometers per 60 minutes ( 125 geographical mile per time of day ) . To be fair to him , why bother go to the bother of finding out things through sensationalism in a hundred where you could merely say " whither should these beast go , unless it were to the Moon ? " and still retain your position as a well-thought-of piece of science .
The stork solved the mystery of bird migration and in return, was promptly killed and stuffed.Image credit: Zoologische Sammlung der Universität Rostock viaWikimedia Commons(CC BY-SA 3.0)
Weirder still was the feeling – referenced in Homer’sIliadand later talk over as found fact by Pliny the Elder – that every year , cranes would fly in the south to stay their ongoing war with " pygmies " , after a decent long disruption from the force . Pliny wrotethat the " pygmies " would ride out on sheep to attack the cranes and eat their egg , so as to keep the population down , while the crane would attack them back in their criminal warfare ( note : don’t assumea war on birds is a war humanity can win ) .
This is all to say that Europe was flailing pretty bad in regard to the mystery of where hoot go when they leave during the colder months .
But then an explanation fell from the sky . With a massive shaft right through its neck opening .
In 1822 , near the German village of Klütz , a blanched stork was spotted , string up out with a 76 - centimeter ( 30 - inch ) foresightful account going right through its neck in the shape of a spear . The shaft was found to bemade of African wood , confirming that the stork had grapple to fly 3,200 kilometers ( 2,000 mile ) to Africa for the wintertime before make the immense return journey to Germany , where it was promptly vote down and binge .
Further storks with spears through them have been see , which the Germans have christenedPfeilstorchor " arrow stork " . Though it ’s believably of lilliputian consolation to a bird that was severely injured then made an larger-than-life journey only to be executed upon reaching , it proved a minor theory of the prison term about migration , arrange to seam the frankly baffling ideas that they simply morphed into other birds for the new time of year .
An early version of this article was release inApril 2021 .
