3:00 PM Edmonton, Alberta

This morning (8/14) I left my home in Maine at 6 AM, the sound of one of the last singing American Robins echoing around the neighborhood. Eleven hours and several bouts of cramped legs, spilled tea, and bobbing head nod-offs later, I find myself in the lobby of the Edmonton airport. I've already checked into Canadian North for the flight to Yellowknife that leaves around 5:30 and, as people stroll by, I wonder if any of them are also migrating north to Yellowknife. Having undertaken a journey like this, traveling thousands of miles across the continent, I can't help but be astounded that birds--little birds--migrate these distances under their own power.

Now the birds of the Boreal are already beginning their southward journey, many of them more-or-less retracing the route I have taken today but in reverse. Boreal shorebirds and even warblers are being seen across the U.S.

By this evening I will myself be in the heart of the Boreal.

I wonder what my first bird in Yellowknife will be.
I wonder when those first birds I see in Yellowknife will arrive in the U.S.
I wonder when the first natural gas will flow through the Mackenzie Valley pipeline.
How will the places I am about to see change in the next 20 years?

Jeff Wells
Senior Scientist
Boreal Songbird Initiative
(writing from Edmonton)