Flight of the Godwit Tracking Epic Shorebird Migrations

About this book

An immersive travelogue that belongs on every birder's bookshelf, with 30 gorgeous black-and-white illustrations and a birdwatching species checklist.

Flying more than 8,000 miles from Alaska to eastern Australia without stopping to eat or rest, the Bar-tailed Godwit holds the record for the longest nonstop migration of any land bird in the world. Flight of the Godwit invites readers on ornithologist Bruce M. Beehler's awe-inspiring journey in search of North America's largest and farthest-flying shorebirds. Driving 35,000 miles between 2019 to 2023, Beehler sought birds he dubs the "Magnificent Seven": Hudsonian Godwit, Bar-tailed Godwit, Marbled Godwit, Whimbrel, Long-billed Curlew, Bristle-thighed Curlew, and Upland Sandpiper.

Beehler interweaves colorful fieldwork stories and rich details on local culture with the natural history and biology of shorebirds – including evolution, the physics of migration, orientation, homing, foraging, diet, nesting, parental care, wintering, staging, elusive "super-migrators", and the importance of conservation efforts.

With authoritative prose and 30 beautiful black-and-white illustrations from artist Alan T. Messer, the book journeys through 37 states and 9 Canadian provinces from Texas to Alaska to Canada's High Arctic. Flight of the Godwit is a captivating adventure and a tribute to remarkable birds and birding itself.

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Biography

Bruce M. Beehler is an ornithologist, naturalist, conservationist, lecturer, and author of nature books including North on the Wing: Travels with the Songbird Migration of Spring, Birds of North America: A Photographic Atlas, and New Guinea: Nature and Culture of Earth's Grandest Island. He is a research associate in the division of birds at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.