What is a Flyway?

Shorebirds, and other birds, migrate along pre-determined air corridors called flyways. There are eight major flyways in the world and in the Asian/Australian region the flyway is called the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. It stretches from the Arctic Circle in the northern part of the Russian Federation through East Asia, China, Japan, Korea with the southern end point in either New Zealand or Australia. It encompasses 22 countries and is used by over 5 million birds.

Flyways are not completely understood and we are constantly learning more about them through the study of flagged birds. There is evidence that some birds cross over to other flyways and that some staging areas are not necessarily on the flyway, but are detours on the long journey.