Between Continents

At low tide in June on the Firth of Thames in Auckland, American traveller Eric Wagner looks for the bar-tailed godwit amongst thousands of waterbirds flocking to feed on uncovered shellfish. Wagner describes the godwits he spies amongst the throng: “They were easy to identify: a loose flock of large, slender birds with long, upswept bills. Their plumage is gray, mottled with brown and black. They stepped with graceful, deliberate precision, and then thrust their heads into the mud in pursuit of some worm or clam.” When his time in Auckland comes to an end he returns to Seattle. “Perhaps, our plane would pass over those flocks as they made their way to New Zealand, two groups navigating over the featureless space of ocean, flying toward different homes.”