Thousands of shorebirds set out on their maiden voyage from the frozen north to winter in the south. You’ll see many of them bobbing and running on beaches along Tobago’s coasts. Faraaz Abdool, birding enthusiast and photographer, champions the cause of creatures whose annual migrations take them from the north pole to the south in search of food.
As the earth hurtles around the sun, its axis angles away from the flaming giant at the centre of our solar system plunging the northern-most regions into frigid darkness. The frosty fingers of winter crisscross land and sea, uniting them under white, featureless sheets of ice and snow. It is the boreal winter, a time associated with indoor activities and reunited families. We may huddle indoors making every attempt to insulate ourselves from the natural elements, but for the animals, their existence is the antithesis of this.
Hundreds of thousands of eggs hatch on the Arctic tundra each summer: minuscule fluffy bodies on gangly legs dart among the stunted vegetation, picking off even tinier insects and other invertebrates. Some of these birds are so small, they feed on biofilm, a layer of microorganisms barely perceptible to human eyes. Cryptic plumage helps camouflage them against the various shades of white snow and brown earth, concealing their existence from the myriad of predators on the prowl. Foxes and owls will not pass on the opportunity for a nutritious avian snack.
But where are the parents of these babies? Although they differ from most other hatchlings in that they are precocial – or able to walk around and forage for themselves – they still hatch as flightless creatures. Shouldn’t their parents at least have the decency to protect their progeny in this uncertain world?
These birds are shorebirds – sandpipers, plovers, godwits, curlews and several others – and form one of the most remarkable families of birds on the planet. As their name implies, shorebirds often (not always) occupy a sliver of habitat that must not be too wet, nor too dry; not too soft, nor too hard. They are picky and particular. Because this type of habitat is limited, they spend most of their lives on the move. While incubating eggs, adult shorebirds gorge themselves on all available food in the high Arctic under the midnight sun. Shortly after their eggs hatch, the fattened adults gather and begin their southward journey. The young birds simply need all the food they can get in a few short weeks; they must acquire the size and muscularity of adult birds and undergo a moult, shedding their soft hatchling down and sprouting their first coat of stiffer, flight-worthy feathers. Should adults linger, there would be too much competition for already limited resources, compromising the ability of the next generation to survive. A lesson for us?
Shorebirds migrate in waves. First the adults, then a few weeks later, the juveniles. These birds embody the concept of connection. What seems like non-attachment to a singular place is really an attachment to a greater, more universal conce
