Across the Gulf on a Wing and a Prayer

摘要

FOR MILLIONS OF AMERICA'S MIGRANT SONGBIRDS CROSSING 600 MILES OF OPEN WATER IS ONE MIRACLE. LANDING SAFELY IS ANOTHER. It was a chilly April day on the Alabama beach, where the last wet remnant of a big storm was churning its way south into the Gulfof Mexico. The north wind was whipping the tops of the pines and live oaks of Fort Morgan, a long peninsula of dune and forest that pokes into Mobile Bay from the east. For hours there had been little in the way of birds, except for pelicans fishing in the rough surf, and a few cardinals hunkered down in the hollows.