num_pages: 400
description: In the past two decades our understanding of the navigational and physiological feats that enable birds to cross immense oceans fly above the highest mountains or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch has exploded. What weve learned of these key migrationshow billions of birds circumnavigate the globe flying tens of thousands of miles between hemispheres on an annual basisis nothing short of extraordinary.Bird migration entails almost unfathomable endurance like a sparrow-sized sandpiper that will fly nonstop from Canada to Venezuelathe equivalent of running 126 consecutive marathons without food water or restavoiding dehydration by drinking moisture from its own muscles and organs while orienting itself using the earths magnetic field through a form of quantum entanglement that made Einstein queasy. Crossing the Pacific Ocean in nine days of nonstop flight as some birds do leaves little time for sleep but migrants can put half their brains to sleep for a few seconds at a time alternating sidesand their reaction time actually improves.These and other revelations convey both the wonder of bird migration and its global sweep from the mudflats of the Yellow Sea in China to the remote mountains of northeastern India to the dusty hills of southern Cyprus. This breathtaking work of nature writing from Pulitzer Prize finalist Scott Weidensaul also introduces readers to those scientists researchers and bird lovers trying to preserve global migratory patterns in the face of climate change and other environmental challenges.Drawing on his own extensive fieldwork in A World on the Wing Weidensaul unveils with dazzling prose the miracle of nature taking place over our heads.
language: English
title: A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company