Zugunruhe: Animals on the Move!
Originally uploaded by Jane Ray’s Wildlife Rescue Series
Zugunruhe: Animals heed the call to move on
Diane Haynes, Special to the Burnaby NOW
Published: Wednesday, September 24, 2008
[Click here to read the full version.]
It’s that time again. Back to school, back to work, turning leaves, turning corners.
We all feel it, that restlessness to shed a little of the past as we delve headlong into an unknown future.
The feeling has a name: “zugunruhe.” Zugunruhe is the restlessness an animal feels when it’s time to move on. Like any good modern word, zugunruhe itself migrated from the Indian “ruowa” to the Middle High German “unruowe” and into the common parlance of wildlife experts around the world.
It tells of cooler mornings and shorter days, dwindling food, the gathering together of flocks and telltale V-formations arching like arrows through dusky skies. It’s about change.
The interesting thing about zugunruhe is that it affects not only birds and animals in the wild but also those in cages - even tame ones - who cannot respond to its call.
[Read the full story in the Burnaby NOW online!]