Good Questions: Bird Migration, Electoral College & Mosquitoes
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Each week, we answer your Good Questions. This week, Heather Brown investigates bird migration, the Electoral College and mosquitoes.
Audrey from Annandale: How do birds know when to travel south for the winter?
It depends on the bird, according to Carrol Henderson, head of the non-game wildlife program for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. There are different cues for different birds.
For example, the sandpipers who start leaving in July go by length of daylight. But morning doves, who head out in early September, leave by the weather. Some birds leave when it gets too cold to find food. Others leave when it's too cold to find open water.
What happens if the Electoral College vote is tied at 269?
The U.S. Constitution says the U.S. House of Representatives would choose the next president. The top three vote-getters would be sent to the U.S. House of Representatives. Each state's delegation would vote as a state. Each state would get one vote. Whoever wins a majority of the states' votes would become the president.
The U.S. senators would choose the vice president. Each senator would have one vote.
"So, we could conceivably have a Trump/Kaine, presidency/vice presidency," says David Schultz, political science professor at Hamline University.
Karen from Faribault: What happens to mosquitoes in the winter?
According to Mike McLean with the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District, most of the human-biting mosquitoes die in cold weather. They come back each spring because they eggs they laid hatch when the snow melts.
Some species, usually not the human-biting kind, do survive the winter and go into a sort of hibernation during the winter.