“I don’t think there’s anybody who doesn’t love a beautiful thing”

November 18, 2021 5:04 AM

A Miracle of Abundance as 20,000 Whimbrel Take Refuge on a Tiny Island is an article by Scott Weidensaul about Deveaux Bank, a tiny barrier island in South Carolina that serves as a roosting spot for twenty thousand whimbrels, as they migrate from their South American wintering grounds to the arctic, where they breed. This was discovered by biologist Felicia Sanders, who got help from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to document the whimbrels. The Cornell Lab has made two videos, one introducing the place and the birds in all their beauty, and the remarkable Deveaux Bank: Reflections of a Cultural Ornithologist, featuring Dr. J. Drew Lanham.
posted by Kattullus (7 comments total)

I realize that the title quote, by Dr. Lanham, is fairly opaque, but when he said that was the point, in both videos, where I burst into tears.
posted by Kattullus at 5:05 AM on November 18, 2021 [4 favorites]

Thank you for sharing. Lanham ties our history to our future in ways I hadn't considered before in that "Reflections of" video.

The loss of shore island habitat for migratory birds is one of those tragedies of climate change that's a giant horror when considered in isolation and then the horror is compounded with the realization that it's degree of horror actually kinda far down on the list of crisis horrors. This is especially so when the list is read from the viewpoint of humans, so we tend to talk about it less than some of the others.

Reminds me of important work Dave Brinker is doing building life rafts of artificial islands a bit further up the shore in Maryland.
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 7:04 AM on November 18, 2021 [5 favorites]

Dr. Lanham is a remarkably insightful and eloquent voice in the birding world. You can hear more from him on the subject of cormorants in the CBC Ideas broadcast 13 Ways of Looking at a Cormorant.
posted by kmkrebs at 8:07 AM on November 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

Oh my.

This is all fantastic - both videos, and the article too - so good at conveying how extraordinary and special this is, especially Sanders talking about how hard it was for her colleagues to believe, at first, that there were so many whimbrels there.

The images in the videos are so wonderful.

I love whimbrels. (Sorry, Sanders uses "whimbrel" as the plural, but I'm so used to using the -s.) I love just saying "whimbrel." (Whimbrel!)

I'm so glad there are devoted and appreciative biologists studying these flocks, and so glad they're planning and pushing for trying to create more good habitat for the birds.

I love the title, Katullus - I think it's a true thing, and it drew me in to look at the videos and the article.

Thank you so much for posting this.
posted by kristi at 12:00 PM on November 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

Whimbrels were only an occasional sighting for me when I birded along the shores of Texas for many years. I can't imagine seeing 20,000 of them.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:09 PM on November 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

A murmuration's murmuration.
posted by y2karl at 6:07 PM on November 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

Fascinating. Thank you for posting.
posted by blue shadows at 8:28 PM on November 18, 2021 [1 favorite]