The story so far

I PACKED THIS MYSELF is a project working with migrant workers and local communities in Cornwall, which started in 2006. The aim: to break down prejudice and increase understanding



Friday 19 March 2010

Migration of the species

In my solicitor's waiting room find an article about the migration of species in a glossy magazine.
Lots of photos but it doesn't really talk about the interesting part - the mystery of it all. How do birds know the routes to take? Which part of the brain stores this knowledge? Is it the cerebellum? I can't remember.
There are photos of polar bears, who don't migrate (two children at workshops last week asked if polar bears come from Poland).
But two books, possibly, to add to our Journeys reading list - The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico and A Single Swallow by Horatio Clare, a producer and journalist. Clare followed the flight of swallows from South Africa to his childhood home in Wales, travelling 6,000 mile across two continents and 14 countries.
"It's quite something to live life as swallows do," he is quoted as saying, "on the wing, taking perpetual risk. It's not just how they live, it's the emotional way that they live: their fearlessness, their joie de vivre and their adventurousness that I love."
It would be nice to think that swallows are filled with joie de vivre, but I wonder whether they are in fact.
Perhaps I am not in the best of moods.