Rising Tide Images
Prepping for Departure
This male kōlea is about two weeks from his annual migration to the Alaskan tundra. Looking fat and dapper in his breeding plumage, he will somehow sense the time to congregate with other previously solitary kōlea and depart collectively. The trip spans over approximately 3,000 miles of open ocean requiring a rigorous, energy intensive effort of 3 to 4 days and nights of nonstop flight at elevation ranging from 3,000 to 16,000 feet. Superb navigators with territorial fidelity, kōlea use the stars and the earth’s magnetic field to find their way over the featureless ocean to the same small patch of territory every year. They may use the earth’s magnetic field visually with the magnetoreception molecules of cryptochrome in their retina.
Prepping for Departure
This male kōlea is about two weeks from his annual migration to the Alaskan tundra. Looking fat and dapper in his breeding plumage, he will somehow sense the time to congregate with other previously solitary kōlea and depart collectively. The trip spans over approximately 3,000 miles of open ocean requiring a rigorous, energy intensive effort of 3 to 4 days and nights of nonstop flight at elevation ranging from 3,000 to 16,000 feet. Superb navigators with territorial fidelity, kōlea use the stars and the earth’s magnetic field to find their way over the featureless ocean to the same small patch of territory every year. They may use the earth’s magnetic field visually with the magnetoreception molecules of cryptochrome in their retina.