Rising Tide Images
Dapper Gent
A male kōlea in his breeding plumage tuxedo is about two weeks from migration. Kōlea migrate from Hawaii to Alaska for a five-month breeding season. 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. A superb navigator 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.
The physiological changes in migrating shorebirds, like this male kōlea, are astonishing. The necessity of increasing fat load for the sustained energy demands of long-distance migration has been compared to, in terms of percentage body fat, larding up to morbid obesity in humans. The surge in heart and lung capacity and increase in pectoral flight muscle are driven by hormonal changes (without the drudgery of exercise!). This one winters in Hawaii. Some will migrate north from the southern hemisphere. Pacific golden plover, kōlea, Pluvialis fulva.
Dapper Gent
A male kōlea in his breeding plumage tuxedo is about two weeks from migration. Kōlea migrate from Hawaii to Alaska for a five-month breeding season. 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. A superb navigator 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.
The physiological changes in migrating shorebirds, like this male kōlea, are astonishing. The necessity of increasing fat load for the sustained energy demands of long-distance migration has been compared to, in terms of percentage body fat, larding up to morbid obesity in humans. The surge in heart and lung capacity and increase in pectoral flight muscle are driven by hormonal changes (without the drudgery of exercise!). This one winters in Hawaii. Some will migrate north from the southern hemisphere. Pacific golden plover, kōlea, Pluvialis fulva.