How high do birds fly when they’re migrating?
A. Most songbirds lift into the night sky and fly at an altitude of between 2,000 to 4,000 feet. The air at this level is fairly still and cold, providing cooling as bird muscles heat up in flight, without exposing them to the extreme cold higher up. Q. I didn’t think blue jays were migratory because I see them all winter, but lately I’ve been seeing big flocks of them. Does this mean we’re in for a cold winter? A. Rest assured that blue jays are not good predictors of winter weather. What you’re seeing is typical for these jays: about 20 percent of the population migrates in the fall. Some of our summer jays move several hundred miles southward, and are replaced by birds from farther north. Most blue jays are year-round residents. Q. This year we’ve seen downy woodpeckers drinking the nectar in the hummingbird feeder. We’re wondering if downies have made an evolutionary leap since we’ve never seen this behavior before? A. Several other readers have reported woodpeckers helping themsel
