by David Catchpoole
Photo: stock.xchng
Imagine if, when you were very young and were utterly dependent on your parents for protection and food, they had abandoned you suddenly to go overseas? Without any written instructions as to where they’d gone, would you have been able to follow their path once you’d grown strong enough to try?
Sound impossible? Not for the Bristle-thighed Curlew! When the chicks are just five weeks old, the parents depart, heading for the tropics.1 Left behind in the marshes of the Alaska Peninsula, the chicks gorge themselves on berries and insects. As their little bodies become stronger, accumulating the all-important reserves of fat—fuel for the long journey ahead—they frequently take to the air for short flights, as if in premigratory practice.
