Silent Seashores

The Ocean Foundation author and visiting scholar at M.I.T., Deborah Cramer, contributes an opinion piece for The New York Times about the red knot, a resilient bird who migrates thousands of miles each year from one end of the earth to the other.

As the spring days lengthen, shorebirds have begun their hemispheric migrations from South America to nesting grounds in Canada’s northern spruce and pine forests and the icy Arctic. They are among Earth’s longest long-distance fliers, traveling thousands of miles back and forth every year. I have watched them at various stops along their routes: calico-patterned ruddy turnstones flipping tiny rocks and seaweed to find periwinkles or mussels; a solitary whimbrel standing in the marsh grass, its long, curved beak poised to snatch a crab; a golden plover pausing on a mud flat, its plumage glowing in the afternoon sun… full story here.

Deborah Cramer follows the journey of the red knot in her new book, The Narrow Edge: A Tiny Bird, an Ancient Crab, and an Epic Journey. You can order her new work on AmazonSmile, where you can select The Ocean Foundation to receive 0.5% of the profits.

Read a full book review here, by Daniel Wood of Hakai Magazine.