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  The primary reason that our feathered friends migrate South in the Fall, or North in the Spring, does not solely lie in the cold of winter, as most are well-equipped to survive in extreme emperatures, but instead lies with the upcoming shortage of food.
    Mother Nature endowed birds with an internal clock that warns them to get out-of-town, or to face possible starvation. Because birds can to detect seasonal changes, they take note when the days become shorter, and fly South in search of alternate food sources, only to return home again in the Spring when there is an abundance of tasty insects, or small, scurrying rodents. An additional trigger for birds to migrate is the need to breed to repopulate their species.
   Often, they return in the spring to procreate in the exact nesting spot they vacated in the fall. Birds certainly do qualify as creatures of habit! The streamlined, aerodynamic birds go to great lengths to make their migratory trips, sometimes flying as far as to other continents, or from the lowlands to the highlands, or from the interior of a country to the seashore.
   The Arctic tern holds the long-distance medal for travel, as he travels from Antarctica to Massachusetts, logging up to 22,000 miles in stretches of up to 1,000 miles per week. Unfortunately, he does not rack up frequent flyer miles! Most land-lubbers make puddle-jumper like flights, with the exception of the Pacific Golden Plover, who undertakes a non-stop, direct flight over the open expanse of ocean, from Nova Scotia to South America, or from Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to Hawaii without making one pit-stop! For some reason, most migratory birds schedule their annual departure and return dates close to, or on the same day, as in the previous year.
   Their timing, however, is not exact, as is the case with the legendary swallows of Saint Juan Capistrano, California. Reportedly, their annual migration begins like clockwork on October 23, and ends with their return on March 19.
   There's much more in these dates what may meet the eyes of the uninitiated. James Ussher (4 January 1581 – 21 March 1656), the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh (in what is now Northern Ireland) in his Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti (Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world) stated that the first day of Creation began at nightfall preceding Sunday October 23, 4004 BC in the proleptic Julian calendar, near the autumnal equinox.
   This statement created debates among theologists lasting for centuries. On the other hand, among lay, devout Christians it resulted in the belief that several Northern Hemsphere birds, like swallows or storks, which indeed start their migrations close to the autumnal equinox and return around the spring equinox are "bird of Our Lord", the white stork as "bird of Holy Mary" or "bird of Jesus Christ" delivernig babies straight from the Heaven, etc. became specially respected and protected.

   Anyway, the swallows of San Juan Capistrano menioned above, just like other swallow populations of North America spend the winter in Argentina and sometimes do vary their migratory schedule by a couple of days here or there, much to the chagrin of the California Division of Tourism - and the 40+ percent or so of pious US citizens firmly believing in creationism up to today.

   Most of the migratory birds sense the magnetic fields that surround the earth, and guide their flights by these lines, which stretch from North to South during their overseas flights where there are no landmarks to go by, even during the daylight hours. Fly-by-night birds fly above the clouds and navigate by the starry heaven.

   This amazing navigation ability of migratory birds is partly determined genetically but there's a learning factor as well. Many young birds, who have logged no flight miles yet perish duing their first migration route if they loose contact with experienced adults leading the pack but survivors later complete their migrations successfully even alone, without company and under unfavorable meteorological conditions.

    Whatever the ways and means migratory birds follow, neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these birds from the swift completion of their annual migrations triggered by celestial events influecing in turn the meteorological conditions prevailing in the biosphere.