On May 21, 1822, a hunter at the Bothmer estate near Mecklenburg, Germany, shot a white stork.
Nevertheless, when he collected the prey, he found that the bird already had a 30-inch picket spear stuck in its neck.
Intrigued, he had the spear analyzed and discovered that it was made of wood that might only come from Central Africa, some 2,000 miles away.
Today, pfieldtorch (German for “stork with an arrow”) is on display – with a set spear at location — in the zoological collection of the University of Rostock.
Before the discovery of the so-called pfieldtorchlittle was known about why some birds disappeared in winter, as science author and ornithologist Rebecca Heisman explains in “Flight Paths: How a Passionate and Quirky Group of Pioneering Scientists Solved the Mystery of Bird Migration” (HarperCollins).
![Scientists' minds have evolved from the theory that birds migrate to the moon to being able to track a flock like these Alaskan sandpipers with GPS.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/birds-in-migration.jpg?w=1024)
![The ancient Greeks believed that birds hibernate in trees or under water.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008847256.jpg?w=1024)
in 4p In the 1800s BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle promoted the idea of transmogrification, suggesting that birds magically change into differing types of birds during the winter, and in addition suggested that they may hibernate in trees or under water.
One of the theories of the English educator Charles Morton at the end of the seventeenth centuryp century claimed that birds actually flew to the moon when it got cold.
The book reveals just how far the scientific and birdwatching communities have gone in trying to crack the bird migration code, which we will now attribute to “a number of complex triggers, including changes in weather and day length, in addition to genetic aspects.” programming,” according to Heisman.
![A flock of birds called Vaux swifts that spend the night in a brick chimney.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008847251.jpg?w=1024)
In the Eighteen Eighties, naturalist Ernest Seton inked the breasts of all his beloved snow buntings on his farm in Manitoba, Canada – to see if the same birds would stay there during the winter.
They didn’t see… Seton never saw them again.
Meanwhile, miner “Wild Goose Jack” opened a waterfowl sanctuary in Ontario in the early twentieth century to try to discover where all the geese and geese that flew through annually went.
![For centuries, people have tried to solve the mystery of bird migration, often developing crazy theories to help explain the phenomenon.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008847254.jpg?w=1024)
By 1915, he had devised a way to catch birds using a specially designed channel with trapdoors at each ends.
When the birds were trapped, he marked them – but he also used bird bands for his own purposes, stamping them with short Bible verses comparable to “Place confidence in God” in hopes of spreading the word of the Lord far and wide.
Yale University lecturer Leon Cole began ringing birds around the same time as Miner.
It didn’t all the time end well.
For instance, in 1922 he was excited to receive a letter from distant telling him about one of his night herons.
![Monitoring bird migration patterns has never been easy, but technology has made it much easier.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008847232.jpg?w=1024)
Then he read: “Your bird was shot today by me, Albert Bailey. . . I took it for a hawk. Apologise.”
Monitoring migrating birds has never been easy – but it surely’s getting easier.
One previous method was to simply count the silhouettes of night migrating birds as they flew past the full moon.
These studies were undertaken in 1952 by George Lowery of Louisiana State University, who recruited 2,500 volunteers to count them, but with no computer, it took one other 10 years to analyze the collected data.
![Two pelicans fight as one tries to snatch a fish from the other's beak.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008847258.jpg?w=1024)
Today we all know that the majority birds migrate when it’s dark.
Traveling at night has many benefits; if it’s clear, the moon and stars can enable you navigate.
The air can also be less turbulent, leading to a smoother and fewer tiring flight.
“Fewer predators are in search of the feathery snack,” writes Heisman.
![Science writer and ornithologist Rebecca Heisman explained in her book why some birds disappeared in winter.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/flight-paths.jpg?w=682)
![One of the earlier methods of monitoring migrating birds was simply counting the silhouettes of migrating birds at night as they passed the full moon.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008847257.jpg?w=1024)
Scientists can now determine where the bird can have spent the winter by the levels of carbon, hydrogen and sulfur isotopes in its feathers.
They’ll tell which region of North America a bird comes from by analyzing its DNA.
As Heisman writes:[It’s] sort of like how you could find out where your ancestors come from by wiping the inside of your cheek and sending in a sample.
They’ll even monitor some birds from space using the Icarus antennas on the International Space Station.
“We live in an era where you’ll be able to go browsing and follow the latest movements of an albatross via satellite in near real time.”