Long Hops

Making Sense of Bird Migration

Everybody who engages with nature has wondered--marveled--at the phenomenon of 
bird migration. How on earth do these little guys (yes, some hummingbirds 
migrate long distances) get from A to B? A shorebird holds the record for the 
longest known non-stop migration flight: over 7,000 miles, over open ocean from 
Alaska to New Zealand. How is that possible? How does a Barn Swallow navigate 
from its wintering ground in South Africa to its nest site in Scotland; how can 
a Pacific Golden Plover find Hawai'i, which is over 2,000 miles from the nearest 
continent--a speck in the ocean amid the vast expanse of the Pacific?

Long Hops (2016) is published by the University of Hawai'i Press.