Points of Departure

Australia’s coast is the summer home for many migratory shorebirds. They live on our shores from October to April, when they set off on one of the world’s most amazing journeys to breed above the Arctic Circle in Siberia and Alaska. Once their chicks have hatched they follow the sun south again. They fly this 25,000 km migratory circuit every year of their adult lives, travelling over a lifetime more miles than from the earth to the moon. In this series I am trying to capture the moment when the flock heads off on migration, their transition from earth to air when, suddenly, the desire to return north, that has been pulling at them all summer, becomes too hard to resist.

Available from Port Jackson Press.