Sixteen species, three great corridors: from Arctic tundra to Antarctica, migration spans nearly the whole planet

Asked: what are the bird migration routes, by species? This field guide traces each species from its breeding grounds to its nonbreeding grounds along its documented corridor.

16 illustrative migratory species — 12 on Americas flyways, 3 linking Eurasia or the Arctic to Africa or Antarctica, 1 crossing the North Pacific to Australasia. Distances in km appear only where a source stated one, each with its own scope; sources scanned live on 2026-08-30.

Americas flywaysEurasia/Arctic to Africa or AntarcticaNorth Pacific to Australasiaribbon = one species, breeding (left) → nonbreeding (right); spring return reverses it

Only 3 of the 16 routes carry an explicitly stated distance, and their scopes differ — a nonstop ocean leg, a one-way route, a whole journey — so they are not comparable annual totals. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The Amur Falcon's reported 22,000 km journey from Mongolia to southern Africa funnels through a single stopover region in northeast India each late October. newsarenaindia.com

Alaska is the breeding anchor of the Pacific Americas Flyway: six of the twelve Americas species start there, reaching as far as Chile and Argentina. birdlife.org

The Bar-tailed Godwit is the lone North Pacific–Australasia species here, flying the East Asian–Australasian Flyway's trans-Pacific leg from western Alaska to New Zealand. datazone.birdlife.org

Species directory

Species	Breeding	Nonbreeding	Corridor	Stopovers	Timing	Stated km (scope)	Source

Field guide of 16 illustrative migratory species (one row each), scanned live on 2026-08-30 from BirdLife International/DataZone, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Cornell All About Birds, Audubon, a peer-reviewed PMC paper and route-specific pages. Distances are quoted only where a source stated a value with a clear scope (nonstop leg, one-way route, or whole journey) and are not comparable with each other. Blank cells mean the source stated nothing. The list is illustrative, not exhaustive; no coordinates were available, so routes are drawn as corridors, not map lines.