Just like the Stone Curlew’s large, prominent yellow eye we take a deep look across the science of biology, evolution, and life.
The Stone Curlew is an unmistakeably odd-looking bird, with an unforgettable wide-eyed stare. Each day, as the sun slowly sets, stone curlews come out from the shadows, acutely and cautiously observing the busy noise of life. Silently and almost ghost-like they tread, using their discerning broad yellow eye to search out black coloured beetles amongst the darkness of night.
Curlew’s Eye illuminates science beyond the boundaries of our preconceptions and spotlights topics fundamental to how lifeworks yet hidden in the guise of plain sight.
To Whom the Curlews Call
Twice daily calls the tide
Up valleys where the sea clouds ride
To where high meadows touch the sky
And wild curlews cry.
No thoughts of day or night
Nor if the bubbling shore’s in sight
Disturb the ebbing, distant sea
Or emptying estuary.
Yet curlews always hear,
Be it windy, wet, dull or clear,
Perhaps by some aquatic sigh
When muds emerging dry.
Then to the air they spring
And off to the sea they eager wing,
Sweet soul-sounds of the gathering sky
That down the darkness fly.
No weaving journey here,
No anxious aims inspired by fear,
But just obedience to the tide
That sun and moon provide.
So why does man invent
Then everlasting lament
The plastic and the trash galore
Which litters every shore?
Or sickly, twisted tales
Whose squalid, booming bookstall sales
Confirm he heeds no tide
Nor longer seeks his guide?
But the curlews’ calling flight
Crossing estuaries through the night
Recalls to haunted man
The shores from which he ran.
For the spirit of winds and tides
Whose face the earth mist hides
Shall one day restore to all
To whom the curlews call.
By Gordon Knight
I'm a biologist and creative thinker. I Love to ponder & connect the dots on the biology and evolution in everyday life, writing about nature's quirks in everything from humans, sea snakes and sponges, to the single-celled forests in our guts!
I have an MSc in ecology and a PhD from The University of Queensland. I researched the evolution of immunity and microbiomes within a sea sponge that lives on the Great Barrier Reef.
