EXTRACT A
Migration is an adaptive response to the seasonal or geographic variation of resources. The annual cycle of the seasons produces large differences in the duration and intensity of solar energy received in each hemisphere at any given time. Many migrants take advantage of favourable food and weather conditions offered in certain areas during very limited time periods. For instance, migratory birds, like the bar-tailed godwit that breed at high latitudes (e.g., in the arctic tundra) exploit the extraordinary abundance of food during a few weeks in early summer and profit from long days, which allow them to extend foraging time. By leaving these areas after breeding, they avoid the northern winters with short days, low temperatures, and low food availability. In other cases, the resources needed in different life stages may be found in different locations. For example, young salmon migrate to sea to take advantage of the great abundance of food and high growth potential available there, but must someday return upstream to the small rocky tributaries required for spawning, a trip sometimes involving thousands of kilometres.
EXTRACT B
Celebrated around the world, it usually prompts the planet’s largest annual migration of people. And though it is known to some in the West as Chinese New Year, it isn’t just celebrated in China. Lunar New Year, which falls this year on Friday, February 12, is traditionally a time for family reunions, plenty of food, and some very loud celebrations—although festivities are sure to look different this year amid the pandemic.
Lunar New Year has even spawned its own form of travel: During chunyun, or spring migration, hundreds of million people travel to their hometowns in China for family reunions and New Year’s celebrations. In past years, billions of travellers have taken to the road during the 40-day period. Known as the world’s largest human migration, chunyun regularly clogs already busy roads, trains and airports.
But this year, the pandemic has stifled the festive tradition. The Chinese government has issued guidance restricting non-essential travel and encouraging people to celebrate the new year at home. Those who do travel must take COVID tests and quarantine once they reach their destinations. China’s transportation ministry estimates that just 1.15 billion people, less than half of the 2019 number, will travel during Spring Festival. The restrictions unleashed a firestorm of criticism from people who had been looking forward to spending the festival with their families—proof of the holiday’s enduring significance for those who associate it with luck and love.
EXTRACT C
The most obvious cues used by migrants to find their way are visible cues such as local topography. Some species, including birds, insects and crabs, are able to make use of polarized light patterns, which are formed when light is scattered by airborne particles. As the sun’s position shifts throughout the day, the pattern of polarized light in the sky changes, allowing these species to find their way on cloudy days when the sun is not visible. When travelling at night, some migrants use the position of the stars based on the rotation of the night sky about a fixed point. In the northern hemisphere, this point is the Pole Star.
Other cues used for orientation are invisible, such as olfactory and magnetic cues. Salmon migrating in the open ocean can find the mouth of their natal river by constantly sampling the seawater for changing concentrations of mineral salts. Magnetic cues are used by a broad range of species, including birds, butterflies, salamanders, lobsters, bats, whales, turtles, and sharks. The Earth, which behaves like a giant magnet, has a doughnut-shaped magnetic field, made up of elliptical force lines running between the magnetic north and south poles. Depending on the species, the magnetic compasses used by animals detect the changing angle of the magnetic force lines, the north-south polarity, or even the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field.
EXTRACT D
When you live in a place like this, you're always planning your escape. Even if you don't know when you'll go. Even if you stare out your kitchen window, looking for reasons to stay—you stare at the red Coca-Cola sign on the faded turquoise wall of Don Felicio's store that serves the coldest Coca-Colas you've ever tasted. The gauzy orange of the earth—both on the ground and swirling in the air—that has seeped into every one of your happiest memories. The green palms of the tree you climbed one time to pick and crack the ripest coconut that held the sweetest water you gave your mother. And the deep blue of the sky you tell yourself is only this blue here.
You can look at all this and still be planning your escape.
Because you've also seen how blood turns brown as it seeps into concrete. As it mixes with dirt and the excrements and innards of leaking dead bodies. You've stared at those dark places with your friends on the way to school, the places people have died. The places they disappeared from. The places they reappeared one morning months later, sometimes alive, sometimes dead, but mostly in fragments. You've watched dogs piss in those places. On those bodies that once cried with life.
You plan your escape because no matter how much colour there is or how much colour you make yourself see, you've watched every beautiful thing disappear from here. Made murky by night and darkness and shadow.
You plan your escape because you've seen your world turn black.
You plan your escape.
But you're never really ready to go.