Rising Tide Images
Kōlea on the Beach
A Pacific golden plover hunts for invertebrates in coastal beach sand on the south shore of Oahu. This beautiful male kōlea is in full breeding plumage; departure to arctic Alaska for a five-month summer nesting season is imminent. The trip spans approximately 3,000 miles of open ocean requiring an exhaustive 3 to 4 days and nights of nonstop flight. In mid-August, this kōlea will make a return trip to this precise location. Incredibly, some kōlea will continue their marathon semiannual migration to oceanic islands of the southern Pacific resulting in an annual round trip total of about 15,000 miles. Their fledglings set off from the tundra searching for an island and a suitable territory a month or two after the adults have departed. Many first-year birds probably miss landfall and perish at sea. Survivors are superb navigators with territorial fidelity, using the stars and the earth’s magnetic field to find their way over the featureless ocean to the same small patch of land every year. Like most transoceanic migratory birds, they may use the earth’s magnetic field visually with the magnetoreception molecules of cryptochrome in their retina.
Kōlea on the Beach
A Pacific golden plover hunts for invertebrates in coastal beach sand on the south shore of Oahu. This beautiful male kōlea is in full breeding plumage; departure to arctic Alaska for a five-month summer nesting season is imminent. The trip spans approximately 3,000 miles of open ocean requiring an exhaustive 3 to 4 days and nights of nonstop flight. In mid-August, this kōlea will make a return trip to this precise location. Incredibly, some kōlea will continue their marathon semiannual migration to oceanic islands of the southern Pacific resulting in an annual round trip total of about 15,000 miles. Their fledglings set off from the tundra searching for an island and a suitable territory a month or two after the adults have departed. Many first-year birds probably miss landfall and perish at sea. Survivors are superb navigators with territorial fidelity, using the stars and the earth’s magnetic field to find their way over the featureless ocean to the same small patch of land every year. Like most transoceanic migratory birds, they may use the earth’s magnetic field visually with the magnetoreception molecules of cryptochrome in their retina.