Hi Everyone
Hope you have enjoyed exploring the Wild Journeys website and that you have discovered lots of new information on the great migrations our wildlife embark upon. In this section you and your teachers can download worksheets to use at home or in the classroom all based around animals migrations.
IWDG Special School Rate
Irish Whale & Dolphin Group
The Irish Whale & Dolphin Group are offering a special rate for all schools that join and reference the Wild Journeys website. For just ¤60 you will receive an annual membership for the school and receive...
- A full-colour magazine, twice a year, as well as wall planners and a host of other publications
- A free DVD - Whales & Dolphins of Ireland
- Regular email updates and local reports on strandings and sightings
Contact Mick O'Connell (IWDG Membership Secretary) at: mick.oconnell@iwdg.ie
Classroom Poster
There will be a special edition Wild Journeys Poster available for free with the RTÉ Guide on March 29th 2010 - be sure to book your copy and get this great poster for your bedroom or classroom.
Download Worksheets
Fascinating Migration Facts
- Longest recorded journey in water was by a leatherback turtle: traveled 20,558km in 647 days
- Longest mammal migration is that of the humpback whale, up to 8500 km each way
- Fastest migrant is the common eider duck, traveling with an average speed of 75 kilometres per hour
- Swallows take 10 weeks to complete their migration South but in Spring this same journey is completed in 5 weeks
- When a Humpback is feeding, over 2000 liters of seawater and food are taken in a single gulp
- Bird ringing was first invented by Danish teacher Hans Christian Mortensen in 1899 and used on starlings. Since then more than 200 million birds are estimated to have been ringed around the world.
- Birds such as the knot have been recorded flying in a jet stream at up to 240kph, considerably faster than the speed of a diving peregrine falcon, the fastest animal on earth.
- At just 10 weeks old a shearwater chick can cross the Atlantic and reach its wintering grounds South America in a little over a fortnight.
- The number of elvers reaching European shores has fallen by at least 90% since the 1970's.
- A Manx Shearwater ringed was found to have flown 740km per day for 13 days straight.
- In 1742, all the street-lights of Galway, Limerick and Waterford were lit with basking shark oil, which comes from their liver