FLIGHT LINES

A shy, elusive shorebird reveals secrets of avian migration.

Journalist and amateur birder Darby, a former correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, became fascinated by a particular migratory shorebird, the Grey Plover, a “dovish wallflower,” which flies thousands of miles each year from the southern tip of Australia to its Arctic breeding ground, and back. These birds, writes the author, “are driven to be restlessly, globally, mobile.” Through his travels, during which he joined research teams that catch, tag, and track the birds using satellite telemetry and traveled to many of the birds’ staging and breeding sites, Darby discovered the particular traits that enable migratory birds to traverse a range of temperatures and winds, to survive predators, and to adapt to a changing environment. Because shorebirds find no useful food on land or at sea, they “make epic flapping flights,” up to 7,000 kilometers, “non-stop, without refuelling.” In these birds’ heads, writes the author, “probably in the eye, is an extraordinary sixth sense that gives it the means to know where it is, and the basis for it to navigate anywhere. Birds can ‘see’ earth’s magnetic field” as well as sense polarized light, barometric pressure, and low-level infrasound. Migration impels millions of shorebirds to fly northward through the Yellow Sea on a flyway from Pakistan to the Philippines and southern New Zealand to the Arctic Sea. They must arrive in the Arctic soon after snow has melted, allowing them time to court and mate. Darby notes that migratory shorebird populations have been declining globally, but he sees hope in environmental efforts to protect wetlands and prevent pollution. “The genius of migratory shorebirds,” he writes, “is that they have survived many ice ages, navigating their way around the edges of the possible. They are a reminder to us to measure our lives by the persistence of wildlife on the fringes of daily existence.”

A vividly detailed nature narrative.