Information is all around us and, seemingly, instantly available. You have a question? Google it…and presto!, you have the answer! Of course it takes a radical shift in an “older mentality” to access this cornucopia. Even now, my first thought when confronted with a question is: I’ll have to look that up when I can get to the right book or paper (in my library). There’s always this time delay.

So the banding program at Ruthven has been most refreshing in helping me to access information. Not by me, mind you, (some, Jeff MacLeod for example, would still consider me a Luddite!) but through the exigencies of a number of younger ornithology enthusiasts who are quite conversant with the information age. Take Christine Madliger, for example. If I’m reading an article or paper and see an interesting bibliographic reference, all I have to do is email her with it and, presto!, usually the same day (and usually within minutes) I have a PDF of that reference for further study. Or consider Lisa Horn. Last Fall we fell into an involved discussion of the role of eating fruit (frugivory) in fueling bird migration. (The banding area at Ruthven has a lot of fruiting plant species, especially dogwood, which has a high lipid content, and wild grape, which has a high sugar content. What bird species choose which fruit…and on what basis?) Well, the next weekend Lisa arrives with half a dozen articles in hand, very pertinent to this subject.

Now it’s one thing to access this information; it’s an altogether different one to read and assimilate it. It’s the latter that takes the time. At certain times of the year, I don’t have (or don’t take) the time to read all this material. That’s one of the beauties about spending time at our little cabin on Grand Manan Island at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. Grand Manan is a great place for birds – boreal birds in the forests, bogs, and marshes all around us and seabirds just a few kilometers offshore. It’s also a great place for whales. As well, the peace and quiet of “cabin life” is conducive to just sitting around reading, taking things in.

Our cabin in Grand Manan, surrounded by boreal forest.

So I’ve finally gotten around to reading the articles Lisa provided. In doing so, I came across an interesting reference and, presto!, Christine had it for me within minutes. It’s by Franz Barlein and entitled: How to get fat: nutritional mechanisms of seasonal fat accumulation in migratory songbirds. Not only does Barlein discuss the relative merits of different types of fruit and their role, along with insects, in helping birds to put on fat in preparation for migration but he discusses various mechanisms that might come into play in making this happen. He also makes a push for the importance of understanding the mechanisms at play in birds in making sense of human obesity.

The bird’s metabolic situation during migratory fattening shows obvious similarities to the human metabolic syndrome. While this has to be considered as pathological in humans, the spontaneous accumulation of fat in migratory birds is a regular seasonal event adapting to the requirements of migration.

The phenomenon of fat accumulation in migrating birds is definitely remarkable. At the banding lab we’ve held in our hands long-distance migrants that weighed twice what they would have if they had no fat stored up (eg, 20-gram Blackpoll Warblers and 52-gram Gray-cheeked Thrushes). Can you imagine weighing two times your ordinary weight and then running hundreds of kilometers at a 4-minute mile pace (the often-used human physiological equivalent to migratory flight)!? And that’s not saying anything about the health implications of putting that weight (fat) on in the span of just two to three weeks. There are a number of mechanisms at play. One is hyperphagia – simply, eating like crazy. Another one is choice of food ingested. But there are other things to consider. One important one (among others) was the idea of reducing metabolic rate or, even more poignant, level of activity so as not to use up the calories ingested so they could be used as fat stores. (So a good human strategy might be to table up at Macdonald’s and just eat and eat Big Macs….and then have a nap.)

The combination of an increased food intake with a decrease in total energy expenditure dramatically increases lipid storage ……..

This kind of hits home. Out here I’ve been trying to be as active as I can be – daily bird hikes, good long cycles – but balanced against long bouts of reading it doesn’t seem to be keeping up with my calorie intake. Should I be concerned or…put it down to an endogenous program that is preparing my body for migration?