A Blessing from the Skies

For millions of years, birds have undertaken vast odysseys across our planet’s skies like clockwork – flying day and night across continents to find food and breeding grounds. Even the little birds have to make the journey. The Calliope Hummingbird, weighing a mere two to three grams, migrates up to 9,000 kilometres between breeding areas in Western North America and wintering grounds in Central America.

Migration is a spectacle of wonder and magic. Birds carry genetic programming from their parents, sense the Earth’s magnetic field and keep track of the sun and stars to precisely navigate millennia-old routes to ancestral lands. The preparation is meticulous, as birds build fat deposits to sustain their epic, potentially months-long journey, and even coordinate to depart as a group. For example, over 1349 species undertake yearly migrations in India, arriving from Central Asia, Europe and Siberia to use major flyways that can even cross the length of the Himalayas.

However, global migratory bird populations are declining sharply, owing to habitat loss, hunting, light pollution, climate change and avian diseases. In fact, over 58% of the world’s Key Biodiversity Areas that are crucial for migratory species are under threat due to human activities. The western population of Siberian Cranes, for example, is now “functionally extinct” due to hunting and habitat development. The lone remaining individual, a male named ‘Omid’ (Persian for hope) who had undertaken the 5000 km winter migration alone for 15 years, went missing in 2023.

This World Migratory Birds Day, we invite you to take a moment to identify the bird species in your surrounding landscapes. Do you have a budding globetrotter in your midst? Are they able to go on their aerial voyages as usual?

This award-winning photograph was shortlisted in the Planet Category of the COP28 Photography Competition, a collaboration between The Climate Tribe and the Hamdan bin Mohamed bin Rashid al Maktoum International Photography Award (HIPA). The Climate Tribe has partnered with HIPA to leverage the power of photography to inspire global awareness of sustainability and advance climate action.