Shorebird flew 14,170 miles to and from Virginia

As the poet said, "Hope is the thing with feathers," and as the scientist said, here she comes now.

After a round-trip of 14,170 miles, a shorebird named Hope arrived this week on the Eastern Shore near Machipongo carrying a satellite transmitter that was attached to her 11 months ago at the same location.

"That's amazing to me," said Barry Truitt, senior scientist for The Nature Conservancy, which helped with the transmitter project in conjunction with the Center for Conservation Biology of the College of William and Mary/Virginia Commonwealth University.

Just how far is 14,170 miles? It's more than twice the distance around the moon.

Hope is a whimbrel, a species of long-billed wading birds. Whimbrels spend about three weeks on the Eastern Shore each spring and late summer, feasting on fiddler crabs. Virginia is a rest stop, where they take on fuel, doubling their weight, during their migrations.

Hope took two days to reach Virginia after wintering in the Virgin Islands at a location that has been proposed for construction of a resort-casino. Her presence has helped make a case for preservation of the site.

Whimbrel populations have declined by 50 percent in the past decade. The transmitter project is designed to identify sites important to the birds.

Hope is expected to stay on the Eastern Shore for a while, feeding and rebuilding strength before taking off for her nesting grounds in western Canada, near Alaska.

"This bird actually came back to the exact mudflat where we caught it last year," Truitt said. "How do these birds do that? We don't know yet."

Diane Tennant, (757) 446-2478, diane.tennant@pilotonline.com