We Find Our Way

The Pacific Golden Plovers' Journey Home

The Pacific Golden Plovers or Kōlea in Hawaii, having fattened up and put on their ‘tuxedos’ of striking plumage, this week are gathering together to one day suddenly take off for their journey across the northern Pacific to the tundra of Alaska, to their breeding and nesting grounds.

After the chicks are hatched in summer, the adults fly back to Hawaii first, leaving the juveniles to find their own ways, using maps etched in their ancestral memories, to spots of islands in the vast ocean, where they will find a little patch of grass in a park or yard which will be their own territory through each winter for the rest of their lives, each August returning across the thousands of miles to their own particular spot.

We find our way. The distance may be vast. The path may seem uncharted. There may be winds and storms and obstacles unknown. Yet, like the Kōlea, we will find our way. Home.