Apr 01, 2015 10:48 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

In an effort to help a particular tiny songbird boost its numbers, researchers have discovered an astonishing migration feat it completes annually.

According to the Associated Press, authors of a study published in the journal Biology Letters learned the blackpoll warblers can fly non-stop over the Atlantic Ocean for their 1,700-mile trip. Native to the United States' northeast and parts of Canada, the feat would be impressive even for a bird that weighed more than half an ounce.

"For small songbirds, we are only just now beginning to understand the migratory routes that connect temperate breeding grounds to tropical wintering areas," study lead author Bill DeLuca, an environmental conservation research fellow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said in a press release. "We're really excited to report that this is one of the longest nonstop overwater flights ever recorded for a songbird, and finally confirms what has long been believed to be one of the most extraordinary migratory feats on the planet."

The blackpoll warblers are forest dwellers in their natural habitats and their tiny size would make a water landing impossible for them, leading many similar birds to make the trip all above land.

"What happens if birds aren't able to fuel sufficiently to make this kind of flight because of habitat fragmentation and habitat loss in New England or the Canadian Maritimes?" Andrew Farnsworth, a research associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who was not involved in the study, told the AP. "How much energy do they need and if they don't get it, what happens?"

The team was aiming to learn about the blackpoll warblers' migration habits to bolster conservation efforts. For their work, they attached tracking devices to a number of birds in the summer of 2013. They also learned the birds are aware of the arduous journey ahead of them, as they eat a lot of food before taking off.

"They eat as much as possible, in some cases doubling their body mass in fat so they can fly without needing food or water. For blackpolls, they don't have the option of failing or coming up a bit short. It's a fly-or-die journey that requires so much energy," Canadian team leader Ryan Norris, of the University of Guelph, said in the release. "These birds come back every spring very close to the same place they used in the previous breeding season, so with any luck you can catch them again. Of course there is high mortality among migrating songbirds on such a long journey, we believe only about half return."

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