In 1927 Charles Lindbergh made history by flying the Spirit of St. Louis monoplane non-stop from Long Island to Paris, a distance of 3,600 miles. His accomplishment was on the front page of newspapers around the world.
Preceding human history and of course far less heralded is the Aleutian Cackling goose’s non-stop flight over the Pacific from what are now called the Aleutian Islands to the north coast of California. Besides beating Lindbergh’s title in time by millennia, the goose makes a return flight each year while the Spirit of St. Louis came back to Long Island on a boat.
Cackling geese are one of many long-distance migrants that over winter in the Central Valley. Many of the birds one might see on local refuges spend summers in Alaska.
Western sandpipers and Dunlin make a 2,300-mile trip from the west coast of Alaska and the Aleutian Island chain to the San Joaquin Valley twice a year as do Black-bellied plovers.
Western sandpipers migrate 2,000 miles or farther when winter comes to northern climes and, like many other sandpiper species, have a typical cruising speed of about 50 mph. While these birds don’t fly nonstop like the cackling geese, they do spend hours on the wing
Far faster but no less frequent fliers are Tundra swans which fly to California from the far north arctic regions of Alaska and Canada – more than 3,000 miles. The birds form family groups and merge with other families to migrate south in large flocks of up to 100 birds. They fly in a V formation as high as 26,000 feet and often reach air speeds of up to 100 miles per hour.
Greater yellowlegs and Long-billed dowitchers fly at speeds between 20 and 40 mph which is considered typical for most shorebirds. These birds fly about 3,000 miles in late fall from summer nesting grounds in the Arctic to the San Joaquin Valley.
Snow geese and Ross’s geese and greater white-fronted geese by the tens of thousands also make the more than 3,000-mile migration to local refuges each winter.
As any of the 50 people who attended the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge’s most recent Sandhill crane fly-in event held Nov. 16 at the Merced NWR will attest, there are thousands of the cranes that have made the arduous migration. The cranes nest in western Alaska but show up here each winter just for the Park Ranger Guided Fly-in – it’s said.
The Merced National Wildlife Refuge (located at 7430 West Sandy Mush Road), the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge and the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge comprise the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Its headquarters and visitor center are located just north of Los Banos off Highway 165 at 7376 South Wolfsen Road.
The refuges are open to visitors daily from one half-hour before sunrise to one half-hour after sunset. The visitor center is open Monday through Friday except federal holidays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For more information, call the refuge visitor center at 209-826-3508, ext. 127 or check out the upcoming events on the website at fws.gov/refuge/san-luis.
