{"id":49668,"date":"2021-10-13T16:16:06","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T20:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/?p=49668"},"modified":"2024-11-09T13:12:42","modified_gmt":"2024-11-09T18:12:42","slug":"wildness-on-a-whim-reflections-on-whimbrel-in-the-south-carolina-lowcountry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wildness-on-a-whim-reflections-on-whimbrel-in-the-south-carolina-lowcountry\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildness on a Whim: Reflections on Whimbrel in the South Carolina Lowcountry"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-group sidebar-alignright sidebar-space order-bottom\"><div class=\"article-list list-style alignright\"><h2 class=\"article-list-header\">More From Living Bird<\/h2><ul><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-living-bird-toc\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/FI-Whimbrels-Johnson-.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/FI-Whimbrels-Johnson--720x405.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/FI-Whimbrels-Johnson--240x135.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/FI-Whimbrels-Johnson--768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/FI-Whimbrels-Johnson--480x270.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/FI-Whimbrels-Johnson-.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Whimbrels fly in front of a full moon. Photo by Andy Johnson.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Living Bird Autumn 2021\u2014Table of Contents<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-living-bird-toc\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest.png 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest-240x180.png 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest-480x360.png 480w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Living Bird-latest issue\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Living Bird Magazine\u2014Latest Issue<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-article\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive.png 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive-240x180.png 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive-480x360.png 480w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Living Bird archives\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Living Bird Magazine Archives<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n<p><small>From the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/living-bird-autumn-2021-table-of-contents\">Autumn 2021<\/a> issue of <em>Living Bird<\/em> magazine. <a href=\"https:\/\/join.birds.cornell.edu\/page\/14522\/donate\/1\">Subscribe now<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>\n<p>Wildness is life lived on whim. It is the unpredictable spur-of-the-moment change or the chain of unlikely events fallen upon birds and beasts without restraint or barriers to keep them \u201csafe\u201d and under some semblance of control. If wildness were a mood (which I believe isn\u2019t too much to ask), it would be the ficklest: joyous one moment in the American Goldfinch\u2019s late-summer, song-spangled, bounding flight; melancholy lovesick blue in a Wood Thrush deep-woods solo; and then bare-tree sullen in the Barred Owl\u2019s dim-lit winter bottomland bawl.<\/p>\n<p>Wildness is in landscapes far flung from wherever our comfortably close might be. Gyrfalcons on windswept tundra come to mind. Or close by\u2014the migrating Yellow Warbler flitting in the backyard, whose sudden decision to jump and cross the Gulf of Mexico in the dark, escaping predator and weather in ceaseless wing-beating migration that led to it being within arm\u2019s reach, is whim. Its singular choice is miraculously calculated as the sum total of millennia of adaptive pressures, differential survival, and reproduction. That moment of lifting off from the Yucatan bump to go north, or make the return trip south from some willow thicket that led to a bird-beak-to-hu\u00adman-nose encounter, was triggered in ways we can never fully know. For the warbler and the noticer, whim is life being left to random acts that could mean seeing or not being seen. Whim means thriving one moment and dying the next. Whim is being in the midst of the miraculous in some ordinary space. Whim is the unpredictable multiplied by the improbable raised to the power of chance.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-list list-style alignright\"><h2 class=\"article-list-header\">More in this Issue<\/h2><ul><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-article\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/WhimbrelsFlying-Johnson-FI.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/WhimbrelsFlying-Johnson-FI-720x540.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/WhimbrelsFlying-Johnson-FI-240x180.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/WhimbrelsFlying-Johnson-FI-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/WhimbrelsFlying-Johnson-FI-480x360.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/WhimbrelsFlying-Johnson-FI.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Silhouettes of birds flying at sunset.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">A Miracle of Abundance as 20,000 Whimbrel Take Refuge on a Tiny Island<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n<p>That the unpredictable linkages between what we can control and cannot; between causes and effects; between us human-kind and them, wild birds\u2014whether on a remote wilderness trail, or in a city park down the street\u2014often happen in an amorphous cloud of best guesses (science) and serendipity (luck) is job security for those of us tasked with the science, and inspiration for those of us envying flight and free\u00addom. For me it is both.<\/p>\n<p>My mind is bent to these kinds of gyrations more than not; stretching words to fit meanings I feel more than think. But it wasn\u2019t a wild place at all that set so much of my wild thinking in motion recently. Instead, it was a mishmash of seemingly random events, converging over a half-dozen years\u2014including the horrific 18 months and counting of pandemic\u2014connected through strangers met by chance, spurred on by whim doubly defined, and all converged on a spit of sand to bring much-needed good news in a troublesome time.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed legacy-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio \"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube embed u5dD08EUKWk\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u5dD08EUKWk?feature=oembed\"><\/iframe><\/div><figcaption>South Carolina poet and ornithologist Dr. J. Drew Lanham reflects on the Deveaux Bank Whimbrel roost as a foothold for a new kind of hope \u2014 not only for ecological recovery, but for redemption and repair in a landscape torn apart by slavery.<\/figcaption><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-birdpress-transcript accordion \" data-accordion=\"true\" id=\"\u201dtranscript-one\u201d\" data-allow-all-closed=\"true\">\n              <div class=\"accordion-item\" data-accordion-item=\"true\">\n                <a href=\"#\" class=\"accordion-title\">Show Transcript<\/a>\n                <div class=\"accordion-content\" data-tab-content=\"true\">TEXT ON SCREEN:&nbsp;<em>Deveaux Bank.&nbsp;<\/em><em>Reflections of a Cultural Ornithologist<\/em><\/p>\n<p>DR. J. DREW LANHAM: I surround myself with extinct birds because it\u2019s a reminder of what was\u2026 I can think about the history of those birds, but I can also connect the history of those birds to my ancestors, who worked some of these fields, and who helped to build this country as bondaged people; who probably looked skyward to see endless flocks of birds, that provided inspiration in many ways for liberation.<\/p>\n<p>I grew up in a little county in the western Piedmont called Edgefield.&nbsp;Edgefield is nestled against the Savannah River, and I grew up on a family farm, so birds were best friends and confidants.<\/p>\n<p>TEXT ON SCREEN:&nbsp;<em>Whimbrel migrate thousands of miles from Brazil to the Arctic.&nbsp;<\/em><em>Each spring they stop to rest and feed along the coast of South Carolina.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>DR. LANHAM:&nbsp;To imagine that bird flying through the air for thousands of miles, and as that bird\u2019s flying, it\u2019s being pulled by memory, by instinct, by stars, by all of the things that we know and many that we don\u2019t know, that causes it to settle, or to go on.&nbsp;That Whimbrel\u2019s eye view \u2014 that Whimbrel could look down and see Deveaux Bank, and recognize that landscape as a safe resting place, as a place to refuel for the rest of the trip so that it can make more of itself\u2026&nbsp;That\u2019s an emotional thing to me, and it\u2019s something to be proud of, and it\u2019s something for us to hold on to, it\u2019s something for us to fight for.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the miracle is that these birds can travel thousands of miles. That they\u2019re dodging storms, and Peregrine Falcons, and all kinds of things that they\u2019ve been built for; they\u2019ve been built for that.&nbsp;What worries me are those factors that they haven\u2019t been built for.<\/p>\n<p>We think about the past, and what must have been, of evening skies being darkened by Whimbrel and plover and other shorebirds coming in to roost in a place. That we marvel over tens of thousands, that at some point in time there were hundreds of thousands and millions, means that we\u2019ve exacted an enormous toll on our environment.&nbsp;When I think about that bird, all of that time and effort, that evolutionary miracle compressed into that Whimbrel, it delivers a different sort of motivation for wanting to conserve.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the reason that it\u2019s important for me to work for home, for my southern home, is because I believe it has to happen here, I believe recognition, reconciliation, and repair, reparation has to happen here. It has to happen here, the recognition of what occurred, that the nation was built on the backs of others, and on this pain. It wasn\u2019t just a southern thing, but here in South Carolina it was so evident, and it still exists on the landscape.&nbsp;The repair comes, the reparations come in seeing, in part, the nature that exists on top of that pain and despair, that nature is reclaiming what was torn apart; that the birds are sort of these wonderful messengers that help us resolve to be better. That we can gather around those birds, and we can say, \u201cThis is what was. It was terrible. We ought never let that happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That instead of seeing brown backs bent over furrows, we can watch the feathered backs of birds probing crabs from burrows.&nbsp;I want us to gather around nature in these ways. If it happens here in the South, then there\u2019s hope for everywhere.&nbsp;The disparate histories of black and white, of enslaved and free, of landowner and being bound to land by force\u2014that history can\u2019t be denied, it can\u2019t be shut out, and we can\u2019t just watch birds without that history in mind, and so it\u2019s important from time to time to take your binoculars down, and to see the wider view.<\/p>\n<p>The wetlands we conserve, the forests that we conserve \u2014 there ought to be a way to inspire people to understand that partnerships with people matter, culture matters.&nbsp;Those great rice fields and rice marsh in the South Carolina Lowcountry, in the ACE Basin, are places of great pain; in some ways now are redeemed as places of great beauty where birds fly free.&nbsp;And so that flyway is tied together not just in space, but in time. And it\u2019s up to us now to determine what happens in the future. We have some of that control, and it\u2019s our obligation to exercise it.<\/p>\n<p>TEXT ON SCREEN:&nbsp;<em>In 2019, biologists discovered nearly 20,000 Whimbrel roosting on a small barrier island in South Carolina \u2014 Deveaux Bank.&nbsp;<\/em><em>This single gathering includes roughly half of the species\u2019 entire Atlantic Flyway population<\/em><\/p>\n<p>DR. LANHAM: To go from one, to a dozen, to tens of thousands is jaw-dropping. It\u2019s overwhelming in the best way, because I didn\u2019t know that that still happened, that that still existed for something like a Whimbrel. Seeing this is like some great discovery, it\u2019s sort of, almost like a de-extinction.&nbsp;Emily Dickinson talks about hope being the thing with feathers. This is the prime exemplar of that. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anybody that doesn\u2019t love a beautiful thing. And what those tens of thousands of birds are\u2026 you can close your eyes and those calls\u2026 and you have to be amazed, you have to be astounded, and you have to be proud to know that that\u2019s here.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"<p class=\"end-transcript\">End of Transcript<\/p>\n                <\/div>\n              <\/div>\n            <\/div><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>This is a story that began in 2014 with a journey<\/strong>&nbsp;to a place I knew of but had never been: a Lowcountry South Car\u00adolina island (once plantation) called Seabrook. It is a place haunted by chat\u00adtel enslavement of Black people bound to indigo, to Carolina gold rice, and to sea-island cotton. It is a place now trans\u00adformed by wealth and appropriation to mostly homogenized luxury living. The kind favor of a friend had us visit on the back end of 2014. Although we\u2019re more an Edisto Island family, it was another chance to gather on the coast.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the irony of my middle-class Black family seeking time in the midst of so much complexity isn\u2019t lost on me. Charleston is the historic epicenter of American slavery, with the largest pro\u00adportion of enslaved Africans stepping ashore in its harbors. From there, Amer\u00adica grew rice grain by rice grain, cotton boll to bale. Our annual visits to Edisto Island are a part of the duality\u2014bound to history and traveling now by choice. By my figuring, it\u2019s a way of reclaiming part of what was taken away. Not the full 40 acres or the mule, but something that gives me joy. And there are birds down there I can\u2019t see in my upstate Upper Piedmont near Blue Ridge Mountain home. Swallow-tailed Kites, Roseate Spoonbills, Black Skimmers, Brown Pelicans, Painted Buntings\u2014the list of birds that I can see before midmorning without much more than a step into some nearby wildlife management area is mind-boggling.<\/p>\n<p>To see these birds on a Lowcountry dawn with the sun rising up out of the Atlantic never ceases to inspire me. The birds and wildness would be enough for most. But for me there are other stories to experience that bind me to these places like a tick to exposed skin. There\u2019s a history of my ancestors and bondage that isn\u2019t ignorable. And so I immerse myself in birds, Black history, and wildness. The three braid themselves in and out of my being, one subject interjecting itself into some wondering without warning, causing thoughts in my brain to murmurate. I suppose one might call that whim.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery alignwide columns-2 border is-cropped size-large\">\n                <ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/BSkimmer-Miller-720x620.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/BSkimmer-Miller-720x620.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/BSkimmer-Miller-768x662.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/BSkimmer-Miller-480x414.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/BSkimmer-Miller.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Black Skimmer at Seabrook Island, South Carolina. Photo by Carl Miller\/Macaulay Library.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>Black Skimmer at Seabrook Island, South Carolina. <em>Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/macaulaylibrary.org\/asset\/159722511\">Carl Miller\/Macaulay Library<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/RSpoonbill-Mercer-720x620.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/RSpoonbill-Mercer-720x620.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/RSpoonbill-Mercer-768x662.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/RSpoonbill-Mercer-480x414.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/RSpoonbill-Mercer.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Roseate Spoonbill at Seabrook Island, South Carolina. Photo by Robert Mercer\/Macaulay Library.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>Roseate Spoonbill at Seabrook Island, South Carolina. <em>Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/macaulaylibrary.org\/asset\/299041321\">Robert Mercer\/Macaulay Library<\/a>.<\/em>\n\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n              <\/figure>\n<p>On the third day at Seabrook, I headed out early to check the low-tide offerings. There were gulls. Lots of gulls. A few Fish Crows deny everything, their <em>anh-anh <\/em>calls definitive. I had my scope on one shoulder and binoculars slung on the other. I needed to make sure people there saw me as a birder, and not someone that needed a security call to the police. I eased into watching the queues of Brown Pelicans floating up and down the beach. Sanderlings skittered in the breaking waves. Ahead, a small flock of shorebirds approached, flew past me just offshore, then wheeled in a singular pirouette to land a hundred yards away. Red Knots, 20 or so of one of the most familiar but most precipitously declining shorebirds, were picking about on the wrack line of flotsam left behind.<\/p>\n<p>I was alone with the birds for most of the morning when a woman who looked more casual beach stroller than concerned birdwatcher approached me: \u201cGood morning! What are you seeing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I re-tensed a bit, not quite ready to be personable but aware that my Blackness, in this very white place, was always being watched.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHey! Just checking out this flock of Red Knots that just flew in,\u201d I replied. \u201cNice to see them here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was a short enough explanation with bird IDs dropped in so she\u2019d know I was someone to take seriously\u2014and without a threat. We talked birds for a while as I ran my morning list down to her. She introduced herself as Sue and I, in my introduction, made sure to drop my university credentials.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/RKnot-Plante.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/RKnot-Plante-720x414.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/RKnot-Plante-1280x737.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/RKnot-Plante-768x442.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/RKnot-Plante-1536x884.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/RKnot-Plante-480x276.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/RKnot-Plante.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Red Knot in South Carolina. Photo by Matthew Plante\/Macaulay Library.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>Red Knots in South Carolina. <em>Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/macaulaylibrary.org\/asset\/328220681\">Matthew Plante\/Macaulay Library<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n              <\/figure><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll tell my son I met you,\u201d Sue said. \u201cHe\u2019s studying birds himself and would love to meet you. Maybe you two could go birding?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSure thing!\u201d I said, without much thought on just who this young bird person might be. I\u2019d just met this woman on the beach and now I was agreeing to extend the bounds of space and time to another stranger. But then I didn\u2019t really expect her to follow through. I meet lots of people who feint at further relation\u00adship, but then most of the time contacts get lost, time passes, and we never meet again. I watched the knots for a few minutes after Sue departed and didn\u2019t give further encounters much thought.<\/p>\n<p>Later that day as my family jigsaw puzzled, watched bowl games, and snacked our lives away, a knock came at the door. An auburn-haired early-twenty-something stood there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHi\u2026Dr. Lanham? I\u2019m Andy. Andy Johnson. You met my mother earlier today out on the beach and said there were Red Knots out there. She told me you said it was okay if I dropped by.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was confident and straightfor\u00adward. Andy stepped into the house and my life, a stranger I\u2019d only just met but whose mother I\u2019d somehow trusted enough to give an open invitation to. We talked for a while about the knots and Andy confirmed his ornithological aspirations. A young undergraduate at Cornell, he knew things only a deeply steeped birder would know.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, those birds are probably com\u00ading over from Deveaux Bank,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s right off the shore where you and my mom were. I\u2019d bet anything they\u2019re going back and forth between there and here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now I knew of Deveaux Bank, a relatively tiny spit of land that held high value for breeding shorebirds and seabirds. But in my time on Seabrook in the midst of everything manicured just-so, I\u2019d not thought of this island of faraway-feeling wildness being so close as to share its birds with me. I told Andy of my Cornell birdman dreams as a kid and how I envied his opportunity to study at the mecca of American orni\u00adthology. We tried to arrange a time to bird but our schedules wouldn\u2019t jibe. We exchanged numbers and promises to reconnect. I\u2019d had many such meetings with strangers over birds and counted this one in the litany of pleasant singular encounters.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignfull size-large dark\">\n                  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/WhimbrelsFlying-Johnson-1900.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\">\n                  <figcaption>Whimbrels flying at Deveaux Bank. <em>Photo by Andy Johnson.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n                <\/figure>\n<p><strong>Sitting in my university office <\/strong>in the spring of 2019, five years past that win\u00adter\u2019s week at Seabrook, I\u2019m not puzzling probabilities of chance meetings but trying to stem the overflow of email screaming \u201cRESPOND!\u201d and procrasti\u00adnation coming due at the beginning of the semester. I scroll through all but the most threatening messages, but then there\u2019s one so seductive I can\u2019t let it go. I even scroll through it at first, intent on leaving it for a proper in-depth response later as I\u2019m on the edge of overwhelm. It\u2019s a constant triage situation, but the subject line\u2014\u201cWhimbrel Interview\u201d\u2014called to me. In the midst of everything I was behind in, I opened it.<\/p>\n<p>Whimbrels, the stocky curlews I know best from my time on Edisto Island\u2019s Botany Bay Wildlife Manage\u00adment Area, were worthy of the pause. There, at my virtual door with Whimbrel as bait, stood Andy Johnson, Seabrook Island Cornell bird guy all grown up, now a Cornell Lab of Ornithology multimedia producer. His email read:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Dear Drew,<br \/>\n<\/em><em>I wanted to get in touch about the idea of getting your perspectives on a new Whim\u00adbrel roost that Felicia and team recently discovered. It\u2019s a wonderful story in your backyard, but one that\u2019s still under wraps for the time being. We\u2019re planning to be in South Carolina for late April and May to film again at Deveaux, but also trying to squeeze in a trip during the first week of March (obviously rapidly approaching!) to record some interviews in advance\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A new Whimbrel roost? On De\u00adveaux? That any place holds such prom\u00adise as a refuge for so many imperiled birds was miraculous. That it was on a comma of sea soil giving the Whimbrel a place to pause just a few miles south of Charleston, and on the hardening edges of so much development, was almost unbelievable. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d ever even imagined where the dozen or so Whimbrels I ever saw on any trip to the coast went when they flew out of my binocular view. But that a little spit of sand was a refuge for a favorite bird was cool enough, and not so surprising given Deveaux\u2019s critical role as a shorebird and seabird sanctuary. I knew Felicia Sanders as a bird conservation hero in South Carolina, a state DNR wildlife biologist protecting places all over the Palmetto State coast. To speak to her discovery would be fun, I thought. With a few calls afterward and a date set for him to come to my office in the Clemson Department of Forestry and Environmental Conser\u00advation, the Andy Johnson Whimbrel meeting-to-come slipped once again onto my to-do-later list. I really had no time for whim or any more Whimbrels at the moment, or so I thought.<\/p>\n<p>But Andy didn\u2019t forget. A few weeks later he was at my door again. This time in the flesh. I was still distracted with work overwhelm but there was something about Andy\u2019s persistent pleasant urgency that settled me down. We rehashed our first meeting on how fast the time had passed. Where I\u2019d met Andy\u2019s mother and scoped the Red Knots was the base\u00adline for what was about to be revealed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that perhaps we\u2019ve found\u2014Felicia Sanders has discovered\u2014the largest Whimbrel roost on the East Coast, possibly in the Lower 48. She was out on Deveaux and got caught out there one night on a high tide and all of these birds starting coming in. Thousands of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Andy was excited. I could see it in his eyes. Heard it in measured excitement. I sat listening, increasingly less concerned with whatever I needed to do, nodding, smiling; happy to be \u201cin\u201d on the secret of something I wanted to do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe it\u2019ll be best to show him,\u201d Jonathan, his partner on the filming project, said. Andy agreed, and opened a thumb drive file on my large desk computer screen. What he\u2019d told me in a few words unwrapped itself in high-def gold-suffused light. I squinted into the screen; my head propped in my hands. Right there, on my desk, were more Whimbrels in a single frame of video than I\u2019d seen my whole life. There were shots of flocks of hundreds. Then thousands. Whimbrels flew in against the setting sun, in and out of well-framed marsh shots they came and went. Whimbrels walked about on the surf-packed sand. I couldn\u2019t count them all. I couldn\u2019t speak more than a word or two with the tens of thousands of birds flooding in front of me, either. I smiled and then a few tears welled up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is on Deveaux?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYep, Deveaux Bank,\u201d Andy said.<\/p>\n<p>I stumbled over disbelief, then found joy. I still couldn\u2019t find words, though. So it was the perfect time, I suppose, for Andy to begin his interview with me. No, I hadn\u2019t been there for the discovery, but Andy knew my ties to the Lowcountry, its bittersweet history and how birds tied it all together\u2014like Bob\u00adolinks to rice culture to Black people to Black Rails and Black Ducks.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"right-quote\"><p>&#8220;Andy wanted me to see the spectacle for myself&#8230;. I said &#8216;yes&#8217; on a whim.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I spoke as best I could to what I\u2019d seen virtually, grateful for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the convergences between abundant wildness so close to Charleston\u2019s burgeoning, and what I called the \u201cNearby Faraway.\u201d I kept feel\u00ading a circle closing and widening at once. The chance meetings. The timing. The intersections of probabilities and possi\u00adbilities. None of this had been planned, but now planning was required.<\/p>\n<p>Andy wanted me to see the spectacle for myself in the coming spring of 2020. It had been six years since our initial Seabrook connection, with more gaps than connects since. That didn\u2019t matter. There was something deeper linking us together. With no idea of what other schedule I might be stepping on, I said \u201cyes\u201d on a whim.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignfull size-large dark\">\n                  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrels-purpledusk-Johnson.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\">\n                  <figcaption><em>Photo by Andy Johnson.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n                <\/figure>\n<p><strong>Pandemonium doesn&#8217;t make plans. <\/strong>It crushes them and operates on the worst kind of whim. Destruction and death are its calling cards. By March of 2020 the world felt fractured and ever fractioning under the compounded stress of pandemic, racial injustice, and political upheaval. My upstate backyard was one of the few places I felt some\u00adwhat whole. It became a refuge from the consistently bad news.<\/p>\n<p>The visit to Deveaux fell apart just as almost every other plan did. With quar\u00adantine and time at home, I waited on the first wave of Neotropical migrants to arrive. I filled the feeders in anticipation of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and kept vigil for whatever drifted through the three-quarters of an acre. Each day the species list grew with swifts, warblers, grosbeaks, vireos and thrushes, bring\u00ading their tropical world northward. I absorbed every bird I could see or hear. It was the faraway brought nearby. Sum\u00admer came and the breeders settled in. Then the migratory cycle turned with a cool rain on a mid-October afternoon that brought a mini-fallout of warblers, vireos, and thrushes, taking turns at overripe purple fruit and whatever insects loitered in the same pokeberry bush. It was a gift brought on a capri\u00adcious wind. Wildness on the weather\u2019s whim. Although those early days of plague taught me to appreciate the birds that came close in, I still wondered what I was missing in the faraway places I was used to visiting.<\/p>\n<p>As the birds turned south with the coming autumn, so did I. Having dumped a sizable sum of nonrefundable money into the Edisto vacation rental, I pushed our time from August into by the fall. We took a measured escape and quarantined ourselves for two weeks with enough provisions to be satisfied and safe. My relief wasn\u2019t inside, though. I took walks on the beach and almost daily trips to Botany Bay. I\u2019ve always cherished the socially distant time at sunrise anywhere, but on Botany it is worth the extra-early awakening. It is one of the wildest places I know, with expanses of saltmarsh punctuated with mudflats and bracketed by copses of maritime forest. The open muddy ground teems with tens of thousands of thumbnail-sized fiddler crabs, each scuttling between one burrow and the next. Oysters audibly \u201cpop\u201d as the brackish water ebbs and flows. The spartina shimmies in the slightest breeze, and in October there are swatches of goldenrod and aster that splash yellow, white, and purple against the canvas of sky blue, marsh-grass green, and pluff mud-gray brown.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/LoggerheadYoung-Rasberry-Wikimedia.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/LoggerheadYoung-Rasberry-Wikimedia-720x419.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/LoggerheadYoung-Rasberry-Wikimedia-768x447.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/LoggerheadYoung-Rasberry-Wikimedia-480x280.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/LoggerheadYoung-Rasberry-Wikimedia.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"A newly hatched loggerhead sea turtle makes its way to the ocean in South Carolina. Photo by W. Gareth Rasberry\/Wikimedia Commons.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>A newly hatched loggerhead sea turtle makes its way to the ocean in South Carolina. <em>Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Loggerhead_Sea_Turtle_Hatchling.jpg\">W. Gareth Rasberry\/Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n              <\/figure><\/div>\n<p>I\u2019m alone most of the time on these forays out to the boneyard beach, a coarse sandy crescent giving itself up to the Atlantic, where the dead hulks of sea-salt-strangled trees litter the shoreline. The beach is a favorite log\u00adgerhead sea turtle nesting site. Human visitors, prohibited from removing the beach\u2019s abundant whelk shells, hang them instead on the dead trees, hitching them to knobs and spikes as if to claim the unclaimable. The quarter-mile walk from the parking area is meditation as much as path to destination. Great Egrets and Tricolored Herons pose reliably for pictures. In the summer and early fall, the hammocks are a lock for Painted Buntings. Pelicans and Royal Terns are common as robins. All of these are birds that I can see reliably here, but I know I can find elsewhere. The mudflats, though, usually hold something unique\u2014Whimbrel.<\/p>\n<p>Never more than a few birds, I\u2019ll see them walking stout-legged and stripe-headed, picking off the fiddler crabs as eight-legged snacks. Ever wary, one or two always seem to have their heads up, scanning for danger. Sometimes I\u2019ll catch a small flock coming in from the east, their long necks attenuated into elegantly decurved bills. They are purposeful, strong fliers. Their cries as they pass overhead are wildness and I forget where I am.<\/p>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t matter how many times I see Whimbrel; I stop and linger with them. I know their world stretches from the Arctic to below the equator. I imagine them nesting in the presence of Snowy Owls and polar bears. I imagine them dodging peregrines on migration and sharing wading shallows with flamingos the color of sunrise on some Caribbean backwater. I see them and am immediately thrown back to my third-grade ornithological underpinnings and an ABC After-School Special called \u201cLast of the Curlews,\u201d an animated take on the Fred Bodsworth classic of Eskimo Curlews that dwindled down to one lone bird. That cartoon flipped a switch in me that\u2019s never been turned off. The few Whimbrels I see now, I don\u2019t want to be the last I see\u2014the subject of some sad documentary on extinction. I snap pictures as if my point-and-shoot pho\u00adtography could multiply them into more. I feel connected to all birds as one might feel connected to holy beings. If there\u2019s some scale of adoration to measure, then shorebirds, by virtue of their worldwide wandering and ties to the persistent ephemeral that coastal environs present, are high on the adoring scale. Among Peter Matthiessen\u2019s <em>Wind Birds<\/em>, curlews ascend to a special place within me. I watched the October birds knowing they were stragglers, like the Red Knots I\u2019d seen years before at Seabrook. I absorbed them until something put them up and they flew seaward. I had no idea in that moment that the birds were hinting at things to come.<\/p>\n<p>As the Edisto Whimbrels faded into the continued turmoil of 2020, I\u2019d mostly let Deveaux go. We slid into 2021 with renewed hopes of better than the national angst the previous year wrought. It was months past Andy\u2019s ask and I was sitting in my backyard (again), happily vaccinated but trying to figure out what re-entry might look like. The migratory birds recycled their routes. Andy and I had done a better job of keeping in touch since our recon\u00adnection in my office, but the pandemic had rendered everything uncertain. Up had become down for any in-person meetings outside of the vaccinated family pod, but Andy\u2019s optimism had never wavered. And there in an email from Andy\u2014another message I couldn\u2019t ignore\u2014a new date set for a Deveaux expedition. It would be April 28, a full moon and corresponding higher tide that would concentrate the birds on high ground for Felicia Sanders\u2019s team to trap and mark birds, and for Andy to film the spectacle. I recommitted to the effort, but felt odd in doing so. The past year had sucked much of the impetuos\u00adity from me. Whim was in short supply.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignfull size-large dark\">\n                  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Deveaux-1900.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\">\n                  <figcaption>Deveaux Bank from the air. <em>Photo by Andy Johnson.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n                <\/figure>\n<p><strong>On the travel day down to Charles\u00adton, I got a late start,<\/strong> having misun\u00adderstood the critical nature of timing the tide with boat departure. I tried to beg off when the situation seemed too desperately muddled, but Andy begged my presence. Promised me it would be worth it. Somehow, I made it from the northwestern corner of South Carolina to Charleston in record time, navigating mostly back roads and even getting caught in Charleston rush hour traffic. But when I got to the boat landing at Cherry Point in Wadmalaw, my timing was perfect. It was like a small invasion squad preparing for battle with each member tasked with a different but critical role. Except for me. I\u2019m used to having some say in field ornithology matters, having been a principal inves\u00adtigator, advisor, teacher, and tour leader for almost 30 years of bird work. But for the first time in a very long time, I was just a \u201cguy\u201d along for the ride.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-list list-style alignright\"><h2 class=\"article-list-header\">Read More<\/h2><ul><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-article\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/SPSandpiper-Johnson-FI.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/SPSandpiper-Johnson-FI-720x405.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/SPSandpiper-Johnson-FI-240x135.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/SPSandpiper-Johnson-FI-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/SPSandpiper-Johnson-FI-480x270.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/SPSandpiper-Johnson-FI.jpg 930w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Losing Ground: What&#8217;s Behind the Worldwide Decline of Shorebirds?<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-article\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/SSandpiper-FI.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/SSandpiper-FI.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/SSandpiper-FI-240x135.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/SSandpiper-FI-480x270.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Spotted Sandpiper on migration. Illustration by Bartels Science Illustrator Megan Bishop.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Fantastic Journeys: Shorebirds Are Next-Level Athletes<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-article\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Whimbrel-Khan.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Whimbrel-Khan-720x405.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Whimbrel-Khan-240x135.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Whimbrel-Khan-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Whimbrel-Khan-480x270.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Whimbrel-Khan.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Whimbrel by Khurram Khan via Birdshare\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Whimbrel Survives Tropical Storm, Shot in Caribbean<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-article\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Whimbrel-Singh-1.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Whimbrel-Singh-1-720x405.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Whimbrel-Singh-1-240x135.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Whimbrel-Singh-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Whimbrel-Singh-1-480x270.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Whimbrel-Singh-1.jpg 889w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Whimbrel by BN Singh via Birdshare\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Second tracked Whimbrel dies in Guadeloupe<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n<p>Everyone introduced themselves. A young ornithology professor. His partner, a mammalogist. A biologist for Manomet, three DNR technicians, Feli\u00adcia Sanders, and Maina Handmaker\u2014a University of South Carolina graduate student. The project had turned the discovery into a full-blown scientific endeavor worthy of grants and atten\u00adtion from big-time press, including CBS News and <em>The New York Times<\/em>. Felicia rolled in shortly after me and we greeted one another as old friends. I\u2019ve known Felicia and her work for a long time. She was a graduate student doing Red-cockaded Woodpecker work under the direction of my hunting buddy and former RCW Recovery Coordinator Ralph Costa, when I was a greenhorn assistant professor. Kind, always smiling but intensely intelligent and hard charging in the field, her work ethic is legendary. We fist-bumped, and after some conversations about who would get into which boat, I stepped into Felicia\u2019s 17-foot Boston Whaler, stowed my gear, and put my life in the hands of the woman who\u2019d made perhaps the most significant shorebird discovery in decades.<\/p>\n<p>The water of the Edisto River soon fan-tailed behind the boats. I turned the bill of my cap backward and hung on. It was one of those picture-perfect spring days when the sky\u2019s blue is somehow bluer. A few wisps of white clouds stretched cotton-like across the late afternoon ceiling. I took out my phone and filmed a Facebook Live, wanting people to see that life could somehow go on even in the midst of all the bad that had taken place. Brown Pelicans rode the wake as Least Terns hovered over invisible prey. We passed by some of the same high-end Seabrook real estate where this journey had begun years before on a chance meeting. Ahead of our three-boat squadron, a low dome of sandy brown sat sandwiched between blue above and tea-stained brackish water. Just above it all, a cloud of gulls, terns, skimmers, and Willets filled the sky. Every bit of bad in the world was suddenly elsewhere. As Felicia throttled down, the strident calls of all those birds filled my ears. The odor of their nesting industry filled my nose. All of it filled my heart.<\/p>\n<p>Deveaux Bank isn\u2019t a spectacular place as far as wild places go. A horse\u00adshoe-shaped barrier beach that occa\u00adsionally disappears at the whim of some storm, there\u2019s not much to indicate its importance other than the birds boiling above it. In all likelihood the vagaries of weather and water will converge to dis\u00adappear Deveaux more frequently as the sea level rises. I recognized its impor\u00adtance through those lenses, but nothing had prepared me for the cacophony of sounds now rising in an indecipherable din from the low dunes and scrub. The convergence of screeches, squeals, squawks, grunts, gurgles, and maniacal gull laughter was otherworldly. This was a bird factory, and I couldn\u2019t quite get my head around the scale of it all.<\/p>\n<p>I stopped momentarily to adjust my bag and snapped off a couple of phone photos. \u201cIt\u2019s something else, isn\u2019t it? Is this your first time out here?\u201d someone said to me. I\u2019d lost track of names in the scramble out to the island. Above the din I tried to communicate the pure awe and joy of being there. Words didn\u2019t work. Smiles did. I remember whoever it was behind the sunglasses with the sunblock slathered on their face, smiling in disbelief with me. We marched on.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019d not seen a single Whimbrel yet, but I was already overwhelmed. Where does one go from saturation of overcome or being sated before the main course arrives? That was my predicament, and we\u2019d not been there an hour. After our quarter-mile trek, Felicia, Maina, and the other researchers and technicians began huddling to make plans for the evening. Their primary objective was to trap Whimbrel and tag them with leg bands and GPS locators to get some sense of how the birds might be moving around Deveaux during the times they weren\u2019t roosting there. The team walked back and forth across the beach, scoping out areas densely trampled with Whimbrel tracks that looked to me almost like miniature Wild Turkey prints. Felicia picked up a feather and identified it as a Whimbrel calling card. She was keen on finding a spot to deploy the cannon nets, designed to fly over the birds and secure them harmlessly for capture and tagging. She called a quartet of the team around her to inspect a spot that must\u2019ve been Whimbrel central the night before. The sand was even thicker with tracks there.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery alignwide columns-2 border is-cropped size-large\">\n                <ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrel-crab-Johnson-720x584.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrel-crab-Johnson-720x584.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrel-crab-Johnson-768x623.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrel-crab-Johnson-480x390.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrel-crab-Johnson.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"A WHimbrel eating a young fiddler crab. Photo by Andy Johnson.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>A Whimbrel eating a favorite food: a young fiddler crab. <em>Photo by Andy Johnson.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/FiddlerCrab-Johnson-720x584.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/FiddlerCrab-Johnson-720x584.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/FiddlerCrab-Johnson-768x623.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/FiddlerCrab-Johnson-480x390.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/FiddlerCrab-Johnson.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" alt=\"Close-up of a fiddler crab. Young crabs have yet to develop an enormous claw, making them easier prey. Photo by Andy Johnson.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>Close-up of a fiddler crab. Young crabs have yet to develop an enormous claw, making them easier prey. <em>Photo by Andy Johnson.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n              <\/figure>\n<p>Maina picked up what looked like a pork rind and proceeded to tell another unlikely story of Whimbrels regurgitat\u00ading their stomach linings that she now held up for us to see. The innocuous shard of dried flesh would\u2019ve been over\u00adlooked by 99% of ornithologists, but here, where Whimbrels had taken over the mind and heart spaces of a handful of deeply dedicated people, it was a wonder to behold. As we marveled over the treasure of a regurgitated gut filled with the remains of tiny crabs and bits of clamshell, Felicia was kneeling on the ground, her cheek on the sand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis definitely looks like the high spot,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat do y\u2019all think?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Felicia spoke with authority but was always democratically deferential about it. The crew nodded and meticulously cleared the sand of roots and grass stems that might alter the flight of the rocket net. \u201cCan\u2019t be too careful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>It was as if they were preparing to catch the last bird of a nearly gone spe\u00adcies. And in some sense, this sentiment was warranted. Whimbrels and other curlews are declining precipitously. Populations of Whimbrels are essen\u00adtially being halved decade by decade. Darkness was falling and the tide rapidly rose with it. I left the experts to their work and retreated to a spot where I\u2019d be less likely to spook incoming birds. I felt helplessly free to just watch.<\/p>\n<p>I was in a nearby place feeling very far away. I\u2019ve been in Peruvian Amazon rainforest and Botswanan grass veldt. I\u2019ve been beyond the Arctic Circle and in the Everglades grass sea. But never had I felt such a connection to wildness at home in South Carolina. As I pondered my fortune, and the sound and fury of thousands of nesting birds quieted to riotous with night falling, the first flocks of Whimbrels began to appear. We all quietly watched as 10 or 30 birds flew in loose knots to land on exposed flats on the far side of the mile-long island expanse. A few Whimbrel had come in close earlier, but now it seemed the switch had been thrown to open the spigot full-on. Flocks of tens became flocks of hundreds. The knots grew and untangled into skeins of birds stretched across the eventide. I wanted to stand and point\u2014maybe shout out the incredulity of the numbers coming in\u2014but mum was the operational word. Hundreds continued to come, and with them, the tide rose within inches of my sitting spot. There was little dry land left beyond what Felicia had side-eyed earlier. She\u2019d been right about that, and the Whimbrel discovery that at first no one wanted to believe\u2014except Andy.<\/p>\n<p>A few minutes past sundown, a ver\u00admilion sliver appeared in the east. As it rose, a full moon that was supposed to be pink cast an almost indescribable red. The Whimbrels kept coming. Now there were flocks of a thousand rising up onto the face of the fresh-risen moon. Andy, camera rolling, couldn\u2019t believe his luck. I tried phone shots first, then point-and-shoot camera with little luck. One of the DNR technicians who\u2019d sat near me drawled, \u201cJust watch with your eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n              <figure class=\"size-large alignnone\">\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrels-sunset-JOhnson.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrels-sunset-JOhnson-1280x677.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrels-sunset-JOhnson-720x381.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrels-sunset-JOhnson-1280x677.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrels-sunset-JOhnson-768x406.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrels-sunset-JOhnson-1536x812.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrels-sunset-JOhnson-480x254.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrels-sunset-JOhnson.jpg 1900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" alt=\"Whimbrels fly in to Deveaux Bank at sunset. Photo by Andy Johnson.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n                <figcaption>\u201cOh my God, they\u2019re still coming in!\u201d said shorebird biologist Felicia Sanders as more Whimbrels poured into the roost in the fading light. <em>Photo by Andy Johnson.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n              <\/figure>\n            <\/div>\n<p>It was the best advice. Someone said they counted over 7,000 birds on the far end of the island. We confirmed \u201cthou\u00adsands\u201d from where we sat watching. And the Whimbrels kept coming. Felicia and the crew retreated before the rising tide, surrendering any chance of netting birds that night as deepening water would foul the setups and the hazard of harm in any capture was too great. We gathered the equipment and headed back toward the boats. We\u2019d been on Deveaux for more than six hours, but I\u2019d lost all track of any time beyond dark and light and surging sea. As we motored back to Cherry Point, Felicia cut the engine to let the others catch up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHear that?\u201d she said, pointing back at the island. \u201cThose are Whimbrel over there on that sandbar!\u201d And just then, the telltale <em>pipippipppi <\/em>flight calls of birds turned us all to starboard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh my God, they\u2019re still coming in!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>For all of her work\u2014the long hours of looking, losing time and fortune of the tide, for all that she\u2019d discovered, she was learning more. We could barely see the Whimbrels, but heard what must have been another massive flock flying in. Exhaustion had set in for everyone but then the birds buoyed us beyond the late hour.<\/p>\n<p>Back at the dock I thanked all I could before piling back into my pickup to head for the hotel. I stopped a couple of times on the Wadmalaw back roads to jot down something to capture what had just happened. It was hard to find words.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d gone from a boy wishing that Eskimo Curlews hadn\u2019t been banished to <em>Gone Bird <\/em>status to become an ornithologist working on behalf of conservation. But in my 30 years in the field, there\u2019d never been anything close to this serendipitous string. A chance meeting with a stranger that multiplied itself over six years into other meetings with strangers committed to a cause that went from several to several tens of thousands. That cause\u2014confounded by a year of confusion, reconnected then to a visit that almost didn\u2019t happen to a nearby faraway place I thought I knew but really didn\u2019t\u2014had warped so much of my sense of what I thought wildness was or what my reaction in it might be, that more than once I questioned reality.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group sidebar-alignright sidebar-space order-bottom\"><!--HubSpot Call-to-Action Code -->\r\n<span class=\"hs-cta-wrapper\" id=\"hs-cta-wrapper-096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\">\r\n    <span class=\"hs-cta-node hs-cta-096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\" id=\"hs-cta-096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\">\r\n        <!--[if lte IE 8]><div id=\"hs-cta-ie-element\"><\/div><![endif]-->\r\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/cta-redirect.hubspot.com\/cta\/redirect\/95627\/096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\" ><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"hs-cta-img\" id=\"hs-cta-img-096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\" style=\"border-width:0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/no-cache.hubspot.com\/cta\/default\/95627\/096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da.png\"  alt=\"subscribe to Living Bird magazine\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\r\n    <\/span>\r\n    <script charset=\"utf-8\" src=\"https:\/\/js.hscta.net\/cta\/current.js\"><\/script>\r\n    <script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n        hbspt.cta.load(95627, '096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da', {});\r\n    <\/script>\r\n<\/span>\r\n<!-- end HubSpot Call-to-Action Code -->\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<p>With the birds and waxing ideas on what wildness really is, I mixed in thoughts of a place so ephemerally wild that it had likely not been tainted by the haints of enslavement that touched almost every other square foot of Low\u00adcountry soil. It was an unlikely string of events I\u2019d somehow managed to find myself connected to\u2014or been connected to\u2014by something beyond explanation.<\/p>\n<p>Almost back to the hotel and sleeping, the four-letter code we ornithologists use for whimbrel hit me\u2014WHIM.<\/p>\n<p><em>Drew Lanham, PhD, is a conservation and cultural ornithologist at Clemson University. He is a lifelong birdwatcher and author of the award-winning memoir The Home Place \u2014Memoirs of a Colored Man\u2019s Love Affair with Nature (Milkweed 2016, Tantor Audio 2019) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Sparrow-Envy-Field-Lesser-Beasts\/dp\/1938235819\/\">Sparrow Envy\u2014Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts<\/a>&nbsp;(Hub City 2021).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Autumn 2021 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now. Wildness is life lived on whim. It is the unpredictable spur-of-the-moment change or the chain of unlikely events fallen<a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wildness-on-a-whim-reflections-on-whimbrel-in-the-south-carolina-lowcountry\/\" title=\"ReadWildness on a Whim: Reflections on Whimbrel in the South Carolina Lowcountry\">&#8230; Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":53166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_birdpress_living_bird_toc":0,"_birdpress_living_bird_toc_title":"","_birdpress_featured_image":false,"_birdpress_hero_toggle":false,"_birdpress_hero_type":"image","_birdpress_hero_image_type":"image","_birdpress_hero_style":"default","_birdpress_hero_ratio":"","_birdpress_hero_h1":"","_birdpress_hero_media_id":0,"_birdpress_hero_media_array_id":[],"_birdpress_hero_media_array":[],"_birdpress_hero_media":0,"_birdpress_hero_video_id":0,"_birdpress_hero_video":0,"_birdpress_hero_youtube":"","_birdpress_hero_content":true,"_birdpress_hero_byline":"","_birdpress_hero_byline_bottom":"","_birdpress_hero_button_link":"","_birdpress_hero_button_text":"","_birdpress_hero_button_color":"","_birdpress_hero_date":false,"original_guid":"","_birdpress_hide_search":false,"_birdpress_page_width":"","_birdpress_global_cta":false,"_birdpress_widget_sidebar":"","_birdpress_next_article":49671,"_birdpress_next_article_title":"How Songbirds Evolved a Sweet Tooth","_birdpress_prev_article":49665,"_birdpress_prev_article_title":"A Miracle of Abundance as 20,000 Whimbrel Take Refuge on a Tiny Island","_birdpress_sub_navigation_id":0,"_birdpress_sub_navigation":"","_birdpress_sub_navigation_title":false,"_birdpress_anchor_navigation_id":0,"_birdpress_anchor_navigation":"","_birdpress_postType":"both","_birdpress_categoryID":0,"_birdpress_tagID":0,"_birdpress_parentPostID":0,"_birdpress_parentPostTitle":"","_birdpress_menuID":0,"_birdpress_menuName":"","_birdpress_listHeader":"","_birdpress_listLayout":"card-display","_birdpress_listColumns":"","_birdpress_maxItems":12,"_birdpress_listPaginate":true,"_birdpress_displaySort":true,"_birdpress_sortOrder":"DESC","_birdpress_sortBy":"date","_birdpress_listID":"","_birdpress_listClass":"","_birdpress_displayImages":true,"_birdpress_displayCaptions":false,"_birdpress_displayExcerpts":false,"_birdpress_attTop":"","_birdpress_attBottom":"","_birdpress_showLogos":false,"_birdpress_post_logo":0,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_topic":0,"wds_primary_content-format":0,"wds_primary_cornell-lab-project":0,"wds_primary_host-project":0,"wds_primary_read-more-tag":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[998,1043],"content-format":[1055],"cornell-lab-project":[1069],"host-project":[],"read-more-tag":[],"class_list":["post-49668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","topic-news-and-features","topic-science-conservation-news-and-features","content-format-article","cornell-lab-project-living-bird-magazine"],"metadata":{"associated-posts":[""],"wpa_off":[""],"_edit_lock":["1732130046:4"],"_edit_last":["4"],"wdsi_message_id":[""],"wdsi_do_not_show":[""],"original_guid":[""],"custom-byline":["<h5>Essay by J. Drew Lanham<\/h5>\r\n<small><strong>Whim\\(h)wim\\ noun:<\/strong> a sudden desire or change of mind, especially one that is unusual or unexplained. <em>Whimbrel by Andy Johnson<\/em>.<\/small>"],"banner-video":[""],"banner-transcript":[""],"banner-image":["https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/banner-Whimbrel-Johnson.jpg"],"fallback-videobanner-image":[""],"banner-text-style":["light"],"banner-style":["default"],"featured-image-display":["no"],"hide-from-search":["no"],"_birdpress_next_article":["49671"],"_birdpress_prev_article":["49665"],"_webdados_fb_open_graph_specific_image":["https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Whimbrel16x9.jpg"],"_webdados_fb_open_graph_specific_description":[""],"_thumbnail_id":["53166"],"_wds_trimmed_excerpt":["From the Autumn 2021 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now. Wildness is life lived on whim. 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