Customer Reviews

The Flight of the Red Knot: A Natural History Account of a Small Bird's Annual Migration from the Arctic Circle to the Tip of South America and Back

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The author introduces himself by describing his Rhode Island boyhood conversion -- from his BB gun to his brother's telescope. He then proceeds to bring the reader along on a rather incredible journey, observing the patterns of feast and flight of the curious migratory shorebird known as the red knot. The annual junket of sorts traces from the southern reaches of South America to the northern reaches of North America, and is nicely summarized in these words:

"Patagonia and the Canadian archipelago are the antipodes of the cycle, but neither is truly end or beginning. In both locations summer briefly holds a tenuous grasp within the looming shadow of near-perpetual winter, but the knots never experience real winter at any latitude. They always stay just one flight ahead of the nether parts of the calendar, alighting only when and where the larder is full, living out their lives in perpetual spring and summer." (p 115)

My usual science reading tends decidedly to physics, which is often thought of as "hard science." In physics, the unknowns lead us toward the deepest philosophical inquiries of human wondering (like "what is reality?"), but the mysteries of animal biology seem rather closer at hand (although this depends, of course, on the observer/ questioner). Ornithologist Brian Harrington observes and speculates, counts and calculates, and often arrives at questions whose answers are essentially mysteries: "No one quite understands . . ." and, "we have very little idea . . ." he muses. At every level, nature gently resists our hopeful desire to oversimplify it. Our story here, of the red knots' travels, is told in five chapters. The last chapter [6] considers conservation issues; what can be done and what is being done to preserve critical coastal areas and other wetlands important to migratory birds. The book includes many photographs, which are interesting in their own right, but also illustrate the text. This is a fairly quick read and an interesting one.

What an adventure! The story: A round-trip excursion from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South America, more than 18,000 miles. The characters: A sandpiper known as the Red Knot, barely ten inches long and weighing two ounces per inch, that can fly thirty to forty miles per hour, often as long as 2,500 miles non-stop in their migratory quest. This is a companion piece to the PBS series "Nova," and as one would expect is a beautifully designed and written book with scores of impressive full-color photographs. It also contains maps of their annual flight that shows their landing spots, along with expected dates. If this information and the book doesn't inspire you to get to one of these sites with binoculars in hand, well, its message isn't for you. This is a study of the ever-increasing struggle these birds face against encroaching humanity upon their life-sustaining environments and what we can do to preserve them before it is too late. It's not preachy, but matter-of-fact in its discussion. I'm going to catch the very next migratory stop in my area, and probably will repeat myself in the years ahead. I can't wait to see these little marvels.