“Summer lovin’, had me a blast Summer lovin’, happened so fast” --Summer Nights (from Grease)
“When tilting along a beach, the horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) looks like a helmet dragging a barbed spear, leaving a road-grader-like print in the sand. More closely related to spiders and scorpions than to crabs, Limulus seems prehistoric, a living fossil, and it is.
Limulus evolved 350 million years ago during the Permian geologic period, predating even the age of dinosaurs. The horseshoe crab is 50 million years older than birds, and many, many times older than humans. What do horseshoe crabs have to do with a book about an amazing species of shorebird (rufa red knot) that is capable of flying 5,000 miles without stopping once, but is now threatened with extinction?
The answer relates to a John Muir quote that author Phillip Hoose employs as an epigram for one of the chapters in MOONBIRD: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” In MOONBIRD, Hoose shows us that amidst an era when microcomputer technology is now permitting bird watchers and scientists to uncover awe-inspiring data about migratory shorebird flight routes and flying abilities, these particular shorebirds -- who live their lives avoiding winter by migrating back and forth between specific feeding grounds in the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere – are rapidly falling victim to the same heavy bootprint of humanity that is marking the deaths of great mammals and so many other species.
The book’s namesake – B95 -- is a specific member of this shorebird species about which Hoose writes: “B95’s name – and fame – comes from the letter-and-number combination inscribed on an orange plastic flag fastened around his upper left leg. He is a perfectly formed male with a long bill and powerful chest. Throughout the course of his extraordinarily long life – about twenty years – scientists have captured and examined him four times, and observed him through binoculars and spotting scopes on dozens of other occasions. Because he is so old, and has survived so many difficult journeys, he has become the most celebrated shorebird in the world.
“But trip by trip, B95 threads the sky with fewer companions. When he was first banded as a young bird in 1995, scientists estimated there were about 150,000 rufa red knots in existence. Then, around the year 2000, these birds began dying by the thousands.” In fact, scientists estimate that half of those 150,000 birds died between 2000 and 2002.
Now, thanks to the influences responsible for this subspecies plunging toward extinction, scientists estimate that only 25,000 rufa red knots remain. Eight years after publication of his groundbreaking book for young people about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (THE RACE TO SAVE THE LORD GOD BIRD), Phillip Hoose shows how – for a particular species of endangered shorebird – the struggle is on across two continents between the man-made forces that are contributing to the threat of extinction and those citizens and leaders who hope to counter those forces and save this species. And in the middle is one crazy-flying, summer-loving bird that keeps on ticking. 160 pages 978-0-374-30468-3 Ages 9 and up
Recommended by: Richie Partington, Librarian, California USA Richie's Picks _https://richiespicks.com_ (https://richiespicks
