The Atlantic Flyway

We live at a crossroads, quite literally. At least those of us who dwell in the region of the Chesapeake Bay.

Twice a year, we find ourselves converged upon, to the delight of many and the distress of some, when millions of migratory birds pass through our narrow corridor bound for their seasonal homes.

The darkest area on the map above, the place where several sub-flyways converge, is right here over Maryland and the hospitable waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

Birds that visit us from the north might spend half the year as far away as Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina.

They come here because the Bay and its surrounding lands are so welcoming. According to chesapeakebay.net, "The shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries including all tidal wetlands and islands, is over 11,600 miles. That's more shoreline than the entire west coast of the United States."

Couple that extraordinary feature with the fact that much of the Bay is less than 6 feet deep (it is a flooded lowland, really, surrounding a deep water channel at its center), bounded by wetlands, woodlands and farms and you have a veritable aviary Garden of Eden.

(By the way, in seeking a good map to show you the ancient deepwater channel running down the center of today's bay, I found an irresistible phrase: relict thalwegs. Used in fluvial geomorphology - a fun phrase itself! - relict refers to a remnant, a surviving portion; and a thalweg, meaning 'valley way,' signifies the deepest part of a watercourse. Really, the whole blog was worth writing just to discover that.)

Now, of course, is the time when the flyway is most active.

Interestingly, Israel, likewise, occupies a similar coastal geographical niche in the Middle East. According to Kibbutz Lotan's Center for Creative Ecology, "Half a billion migrating birds, more than 230 species, fly in Israeli air space on annual migrations between Europe, western Asia and Africa."

The prophet Jeremiah noted the seasonal migrations in biblical times: “The stork in the heaven knows her appointed times; and the turtledove, swift and the crane observe their time of coming.” (Jeremiah 8:7).

The trees and we have our seasonal garb; the sun its gyrating arc; the wind its variable moods. The birds, not to be outdone, outdo us all. Wish them godspeed as they go by.

(map from US Fish and Wildlife Service)