You know, the night sky is cooler, and the air is calmer. Most birds migrate after dark, including almost all of the birds that are normally active at daytime. WEIDENSAUL: Yeah, and it's happening everywhere. And that passion has never diminished at all.ĭAVIES: One other thing I want to - that you describe in the book that I want you to share with us is - particularly those of us, you know, on the East Coast or in the mid-Atlantic corridor, that we don't know it, but there are times at night when overhead there is this massive nighttime migration happening. And ever since that day, I've - migration has had its hooks in me, raptors have had its hooks in me, and it's taken me all over the world. And for a 12-year-old to be sitting on these rocks a thousand feet above the valley, watching red-tailed hawks and sharp-shinned hawks and golden eagles passing by was intoxicating. You know, they're majestic, and they're awe-inspiring. But that day, actually, I got hooked on raptors because birds of prey are cool.
The sky was full of migrating raptors.Īnd, you know, it's rare that you can point to a single day in your life and say, this day changed my life. And as you say, you know, when I was 12 years old on what turned out by dumb luck to be just one of the most - one of the best migration days of the fall, there was a strong northwest wind blowing. I was a nature nut pretty much right out of the womb. And I had been campaigning pretty hard as a kid to - for my parents to take me to Hawk Mountain. And it's this high, windswept ridge along the Appalachian Ridge-and-Valley system, and along which every fall, tens of thousands of hawks and eagles and falcons and vultures migrate south. And not all that far from where I grew up is a place called Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, which is the world's oldest sanctuary for birds of prey. That's where I've lived almost my entire life. I grew up in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania. You know, you've been doing this for so many decades, but you write in this book that your fascination with birds really goes back to a pivotal moment when you were 12 years old.
I spoke to him in March of last year, when "A World On The Wing" was first published.ĭAVIES: Scott Weidensaul, welcome back to FRESH AIR.
He co-founded Project SNOWstorm, which tracks and studies snowy owls and is a founder of the Critical Connections project, which is tracking the migration of birds that breed on national park lands in Alaska.
Scott Weidensaul has written 30 previous books, and his articles have appeared in Audubon, National Wildlife and other publications. One study found that since 1970, roughly 30% of North American birds have disappeared, more than 3 billion of them. Weidensaul writes about what he calls this majestic global pageant and about the threats the animals face. Weidensaul's latest book, "A World On The Wing: The Global Odyssey Of Migratory Birds," is now out in paperback. The scale of bird migration is staggering, involving billions of birds, and the diversity of the species' mating, nesting and flying habits is awe inspiring. He's spent decades studying migratory birds, reporting on and writing about them and doing fieldwork and tracking and conservation efforts. Did you know that when some migratory birds prepare for flights that can take them thousands of miles, their intestines and digestive organs shrink while their heart, lung and leg muscles can double in size? That's just one of the amazing facts you can learn from our guest, Scott Weidensaul. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross, who's off this week.