Timeless travellers

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 concept of what nature is. Linked to the cosmos and the earth’s magnetic field, birds that have been alive for barely a month take to the sky as the days become shorter and shorter. These young, inexperienced birds for the most part travel uneventfully to several key areas on their way south. Termed “stopover sites” in ornithology, these are refuelling stations for weary travellers. Juvenile birds are the ones most likely to momentarily lose their way, and most of the extralimital sightings of shorebird species on southbound migration tend to be of young birds on their maiden voyage.

Here in TT, we are fortunate to witness a fraction of this odyssey each year. Some shorebirds make a few stops along the way to get here. After arriving, they may spend up to eight or nine months with us. Other species spend considerably less time here as they refuel en route to a destination as far south as Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America.

Shorebirds are wholly dependent upon the habitat integrity of countless places which they are absent from for months at a time. Tidal mudflats and shorelines of various characteristics, rivers, marshes, wetlands, and pastures utilised by their ancestors for millennia support the survival of this ultra-seasonal family. Sadly, many of these areas have been negatively affected by human development; and the family of shorebirds ranks among the most threatened of all birds.

In addition to their extreme habitat requirements, shorebirds also face challenges induced by climate change. The alteration of global rhythms threatens to upset the natural timing of nutrient blooms necessary to feed hungry mouths. Whether fly larvae at their breeding grounds or crab eggs at stopover sites – all must be in place at very specific times to coincide with the presence of shorebirds in transit. Should any item in the food chain fall out of sync it could spell disaster for an entire species at a time.

We have the responsibility of not continuing to pile obstacles in their path. In addition to our indirect impacts on their breathless lives, our pollutants – both discarded effluent as well as the purposeful use of toxic chemicals – can have devastating consequences for the tiny shorebirds that ingest them. They are also often inexplicably hunted with impunity at various sites throughout the Caribbean. It is obscene for a bird with abilities transcending superlatives, scaling inconceivable hurdles to meet an ignominious end struggling in a mist net or bleeding to death from a bullet wound.

Further to these, our cats and dogs continue to exacerbate the already dire situation. Many shorebirds arrive here exceedingly spent and make easy prey for free-roaming cats, especially as they roost on the ground. Dogs may chase shorebirds as a form of play – unaware that the birds may have just completed a thousand-mile journey.

All these issues are human-induced, therefore it is up to us to rectify the situation to ensure these birds survive. We owe it to these timeless travellers who have been making this mammoth migration for countless years. It is unacceptable for us to continue living our lives at the expense of others.