FOR THOS awed by nature on a planetary scale, this is a special time of year. During the autumn bird migration, 50m-odd individuals from 155 species of waders and other waterbirds barrel down the great avian thoroughfare known as the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. It stretches from breeding grounds in Alaska and the extreme north-east of Russia all the way to Australia and New Zealand. In Hong Kong, where Banyan resides, wetlands and mudflats at Mai Po are of global importance-a crucial pitstop along the flyway. Fion Cheung of the WWF, which works to protect Mai Po, says it is filling up with early arrivals: Eurasian curlews, with long curved bills, and dumpy broad-billed sandpipers.
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