The Narrow Edge: a Tiny Bird, an Ancient Crab, and an Epic Journey

It would be difficult not be moved by this deeply elegiac yet riveting tale as Deborah Cramer unravels one of nature's more deeply woven connections. She laments the loss of much immeasurable natural beauty at the hand of humankind, while offering hope through her accounts of those whose hearts already beat in tune to the rhythm of Red Knot migration.

In the Americas the rufa sub-species of Red Knot, recently given threatened species status by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, migrates almost the entire length of the Atlantic Coast, from wintering grounds in southern Chile to breed in the Arctic tundra. In the Narrow Edge Deborah Cramer follows the Red Knots along the length of this epic journey, charting their steady decline as a result of our unrestrained impact on their existence. This impact is felt wherever the lives birds of birds and people meet, but none more so than in Delaware Bay. It at this critical staging post that the fortune of these small waders, more than halfway through their 19,000 mile flight becomes dependent upon the horseshoe crab; an ancient creature that has remained unchanged by evolution for 450 million years, the spawn of which provides vital fuel for hungry knots and other shorebirds fattening up before leaving the bay to breed in the Arctic.

The connections between crab and bird are crucial and as we, fuelled by greed and ignorance, have gravely denuded the horseshoe crab population, that of the Red Knot has followed suit. Cramer's stories of over-fishing and hunting chillingly describe the effects of our wanton abuse, yet there is another piece in this puzzle, for we ourselves have in turn become dependent upon the blue blood of the horseshoe crab to ensure medical supplies are kept free from infection.

Despite the immense loss felt as one becomes lost in Cramer's flowing narrative there is warmth too and a glimmer hope to be revealed as she writes of her time spent with researchers and conservationists, working at every stage of the knots' travels and seeking with care and fervour to understand the decline of this species. Once armed with this evidence the conservationists are fighting to preserve the habitats and ecosystems that Red Knot and other shorebirds rely on.

Having witnessed first-hand the spectacle of migrating Red Knot feeding on the bright green eggs of spawning horseshoe crabs in Mispillion Harbour, Delaware Bay, it would be difficult not to deservedly recommend this brilliantly written book that will appeal to fans of nature writing and detective novels alike, for The Narrow Edge reads as both.

Book reviewed by Justin Walker