This week we celebrate “World Migratory Bird Day”. 

Many species of birds around the world, migrate back and forth each year along with seasonal changes, to find better weather and resources, such as food and nesting locations. When it comes to migration the size of the bird doesn’t dictate how far it’ll fly. The small Arctic Tern will fly the greatest distance from Pole to Pole, a round trip being approximately 90,000 kilometers / 55,923 miles. Whilst the Bar Headed Goose, who is much larger will only fly 5140 kilometers / 3193 miles, but it’s flight path makes it one of the highest flying birds, as it goes up and over the Himalayas.

This year the theme for “World Migratory Bird Day” is  the impact of light pollution on migrating birds. For more information on this years theme go to : www.worldmigratorybirdday.org

Click the link to download this colouring activity from Planet Designs Kids Planet Designs Kids Free Downloads on our website or on our Pinterest account.

Here are some idea’s on how to extend this colouring activity further for studies about migrating birds:

• Research how big each bird is and what its wingspan is.
• Draw each bird to scale and compare each bird’s size to the others.
• Make a visual flight path of how far each bird flies by tying a piece of string across a wall or ceiling as a ruler to mark kilometers/miles. Put a label at  one end of the string as “Home 0 km/miles”, the other end label “Distance Migrated” along with the farthest distance of migration. Mark the string as a scale from start to end eg ½ meter = 5000km. Then cut out a picture of each bird (to scale), write a label for how far it flies on migration. Tie the bird & label onto the string according to its migration distance.
• Draw a flat map of the world and lines of what countries the birds fly over on their migrations. Work out which bird flies over the most countries.
• Research what can impact a bird’s migration.
• Research this years theme of how light pollution can effect a migrating bird.
• Research the conservation status of each bird. You can begin with checking if any birds are listed on the IUCN Red List of threatened species at www.iucnredlist.org  This can be opened to further discussions of what each status means eg Least Concern, Near Threatened, Critically Endangered.

To download or print using the above links: 

* Planet Designs Kids Free Downloads (on our website) - click the “Planet Designs Kids Free Downloads” link and it will take you to the free downloads page on our website. Put in your email address and you’ll have free access to all of our free colouring activities. Click “Continue”, then on the page you want click “Download”, and it will then be saved in your downloads folder where you can print it.

* Pinterest - click the “Pinterest” link and it will take you to the Planet Designs Kids Pinterest account where you can find the above colouring activity, click the menu button at top of picture (3 dots … ), and select “Download Image”, it will then be saved in your downloads folder where you can print it.