The Wisdom of Birds

This is the opening section of chapter 4.

I´m sitting in a medieval castle, a small one, on the outskirts of the sleepy village of Radolfzell in southern Germany. It is cold outside and a low winter sun is casting long shadows from the apple trees in the surrounding orchards across the frosty ground. Unlikely as it might seem, the castle houses a famous institute of bird migration. In front of me is a computer screen, and on it a pixellated outline of the Dark Continent. From the very centre of Africa a point no bigger than a full stop is flashing at the same frequency as my heart beats. It is almost as though it is a heartbeat, but the signal is from a radio carried by a white stork standing motionless on the hot savannah.

Five months previously, before this particular bird left its nest in Eastern Germany, it was fitted with a small transmitter that is now monitored several times each a day by a satellite streaming across the heavens, pinpointing its exact location, its body temperature and whether it is flying, walking or standing. The stork is out of sight of almost any human and I feel over-awed and humbled by so effortlessly being able to `see´ this bird.

A couple of mouse- clicks and I can re-create its southward journey; its day- to- day progress across eastern Europe, the Bosporus, Turkey, Eilat, Sudan and into Chad where it has been for several weeks during the European winter.

Another mouse click, and I can look at another stork. Ringed in the same part of Germany, this one continued to fly south and is wintering near Cape Town and by the time it returns to Europe next spring it will have flown some 24,000 kilometres (just under 15,000 miles).

The technology that allows me this view of a bird´s life is a miracle, but a tiny miracle one compared with migration itself. So far the satellite transmitters are suitable only for large birds – albatrosses, eagles, swans and storks – but soon, as the technology improves tiny transmitters powered by the sun will allow us to track swallows, swifts and martins on their epic journeys across the Sahara Desert and back.