Winged Migration (The Travelling Birds / Le Peuple migrateur)

The graylag goose flies 1800 miles...

... from south-western Europe to Scandinavia.

The story of migrating birds is the story of a promise:

The promise to return.

They fly, often thousands of miles, beset with danger...

... for a single reason:

To survive.

Their migration is a fight for life.

When spring comes, they take wing for the Arctic.

Some fly relentlessly, night and day.

Others make the trip in stages...

... laboring to reach their distant destination.

The Eurasian crane flies 2500 miles from Spain to the boreal forest.

The white stork flies 3100 miles from central Africa to Western Europe.

To navigate across the latitudes...

... they use the natural beacons of the universe:

The sun, the stars.

They can track the earth's magnetic field...

... as sensitively as a compass needle.

The barnacle goose flies 1500 miles from western Europe to Greenland.

All over the Northern Hemisphere...

The whooper swan flies 1800 miles from the Far East to the Siberian tundra.

... on every continent the spring migration has begun.

No barriers stop them.

The birds make straight for the far north.

The bar-headed goose flies 1500 miles from lndia to the central Asia steppes.

The red-crowned crane flies 600 miles from the Far East to the Siberian taiga.

The bald eagle flies 1800 miles from the American West to Alaska.

The Canada goose flies 2000 miles...

... from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Circle.

All across America...

... from coast to coast...

... the migrants wing their way towards the Arctic Circle.

The snow goose flies 2500 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic lands.

The Clark's grebe in Oregon.

The sandhill crane flies 2000 miles...

... from the Central American plains to the arctic lands.

The greater sage grouse in ldaho.

Coming from every continent...

... the migrant birds converge upon the Arctic and disperse.

Their life as a community is over.

Now, it's family time.

There is a world apart:

The realm of sea birds.

Every spring, they quit the ocean waves...

... and flock to nest on the same cliffs and rocks.