A Valentine’s story in the tundra: How two whimbrels reunite each year in Arctic Alaska to mate

A whimbrel stands in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Photo by Shiloh Schulte)

It may be the most enduring love story in the shorebird world, two birds coming together from different parts of the hemisphere. Hudsonian whimbrels are famously faithful, often mating for life and returning each May and June to the same stretch of Arctic tundra to breed.

Their courtships begin in the air. Males launch into high-altitude flight displays, circling and gliding over the tundra while singing a musical call to win a mate and claim a patch of territory. If the chemistry is right, the pair takes it to the ground with synchronized moves, tails raised, breasts dipped and quick little chases that look a lot like flirtation. Most pairs stick together for the season, turning a short Arctic summer into a full-on Valentine’s story in the tundra. Together, the pair lays four eggs and spends weeks raising their chicks before traveling south.

What is also noteworthy is that the love story pairs with one of the most astonishing migrations in the natural world. The whimbrel is a striking, long-legged shorebird with a graceful down-curved bill, traveling up to 9,000 miles each year from the high Arctic to the coasts of South America. Individuals follow the same ocean routes and return to the same coastal stopover sites year after year, navigating with exact precision.

With satellite tracking, scientists can learn about the remarkable journeys of these birds, enduring different climates, hurricanes and long-haul flights until they meet again for the next breeding season. Over the last 10 years, Manomet Conservation Sciences and our team of partners have deployed over 40 transmitters on whimbrel at various sites in North America.

What makes this story urgent is that the whimbrel is disappearing. Once numbering in the hundreds of thousands, populations have declined by as much as 70% over the past two decades due to habitat loss, climate change and disruptions along the very migratory routes they have followed for millennia.

To understand—and hopefully reverse—that decline, scientists are attaching satellite transmitters to track where whimbrels face the greatest threats along their journeys. This work is coordinated through the whimbrel Working Group, a network of biologists and conservation managers across the Western Hemisphere who share data, monitor populations, map critical sites and guide conservation action.

Along the way, researchers have also overturned a long-held assumption: whimbrels were once thought to migrate solely along the Pacific Flyway, but tracking data now show they use both the Pacific and Atlantic flyways to travel between the Arctic and South America—making their story not only one of love and endurance, but of scientific discovery unfolding in real time.

Daniel Ruthrauff, PhD, is a senior shorebird scientist at Manomet Conservation Sciences based in Anchorage, Alaska. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.