The documentary shines a spotlight on an awe-inspiring phenomenon of shorebird migration. The film follows Far Eastern Curlews, Lesser Yellowlegs, Red Knots and Hudsonian Godwits as they undertake some of the longest and most grueling migrations in the animal kingdom, in which they fly for days nonstop without food or water from their feeding grounds in the southern hemisphere to the Arctic and back again. The film also sounds an alarm as dozens of shorebird species have suffered precipitous population declines in the past few decades. Researchers are trying to understand the perils the birds encounter along migration paths that were once shrouded in mystery.

 

Photo by Randall Wood of banded Lesser Yellowlegs in Alaska.

 

Flyways, a film from HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, premiered on PBS Nature in February 2024.