Eye on Science: Autumn-Lynn Harrison is a Migratory Bird Diplomat

Some birds fly across the globe in search of an endless summer. They may spend months flying thousands of miles in search of the right weather and food and a place to raise their young.

Birds’ world travels, nearly boundless by our human standards, are exactly what drew Autumn-Lynn Harrison to the Migratory Bird Center at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, where she studies, as you guessed it…bird migration. When it comes to her research, Harrison especially loves studying birds that cross international borders as they search for safe and bountiful environments in multiple places around the world.

In the field in Alaska. (Photo courtesy Autumn-Lynn Harrison)

Harrison studies Arctic shorebirds and seabirds that live in Alaska during North America’s summer and migrate to Antarctica, Australia, or South America for summer in the Southern Hemisphere.  When asked why it’s important to study these birds, she was quick to answer. “Migratory birds affect our lives in many ways. They brought hope during pandemic restrictions as many people became backyard birdwatchers. With their freedom of flight, migratory birds can transfer nutrients or diseases across regions and serve as bellwethers of climate change. And besides all the science-y reasons, they can teach us about our own ethics as evident by the albatross’ role in the classic poem the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. (TL;DR: Don’t shoot albatrosses. Also, avoid the wedding guest with a “glittering eye” at all costs.)

Autumn-Lynn Harrison in the field in Alaska. She holds an Arctic Tern who was recaptured after a long migration from Antarctica to Alaska where it had been originally tagged a year earlier. (Photo by Kate Persons for Smithsonian)

For these reasons, you’ll often find Harrison in Alaska, sometimes into October, even as sunlight becomes scarce, and the temperatures drop. On one trip, she watched the ocean freeze over a period of a week! “The water turned viscous and slushy,” she said. “When ocean waves are turning to ice, it’s amazing to me.” (Ed. note: It has to be really cold for salt water to freeze.)

Harrison uses small electronic tracking devices to follow along with migratory bird’s movements in real time as they leave the Arctic region for their migrations. Because many trackers she uses are solar powered, they don’t stand up to darkness of Arctic winters very well and so like the birds themselves, they are happiest in a state of plentiful sunshine.

Artist’s rendition of a long-tailed Jaeger tagged with a radio antenna. (Illustration by Kate Persons for Smithsonian)

But in the springtime, the sun comes out of hiding, temperatures rise above freezing, and the birds make their journeys back to Alaska for another nesting season. Harrison couldn’t help but describe her favorite springtime weather phenomenon she’s seen on Alaska’s lakes: There during spring, a unique form of ice develops called candle ice. “When the ice begins to melt, these strips break off and clink, and they sound like little wind chimes.”

Alaska has started to feel like home to Autumn-Lynn because she’s done so much work there and she has made many friends there. But her story doesn’t begin in Alaska; rather it starts not so far from DC, geographically speaking. Harrison grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland along the Chesapeake Bay—her family has been there since the 17th century. “I grew up crabbing with my Dad and Grandmom and my family had been oystering and crabbing for hundreds of years,” she said. As a result, she always thought she’d be doing something with water. Migration was a natural cycle where she grew up, she added, as she reminisced about watching osprey and waterfowl fly in an out of the area. “I thought about how these animals are crossing countries’ borders and how freeing and exciting that could be.”

Autum-Lynn Harrison releases a tagged Arctic Tern in Alaska. (Photo by Kate Persons for the Smithsonian)

Harrison’s work has taken her not just to the coldest places across the globe. In college, she studied abroad in Kenya, where she watched huge herds of animals migrate across the landscape, crossing between Tanzania and Kenya. She then worked with northern elephant seals and sea lions in California as part of a larger animal tagging initiative, and her Ph.D. research included a study of cape fur seals in South Africa. She’s spent the most time outside of the United States working in Australia, where she did her master’s research on the Great Barrier Reef, and in southern and eastern Africa. These experiences working in many land- and seascapes, while learning from other communities and cultures helps her appreciate to the diverse situations faced by the migratory animals she studies.

“If we lose animals that connect us across countries, continents, and oceans, we’re losing a part of ourselves, a part of our culture, and part of our heritage.”

Does all this time studying birds make Harrison a birder? Not quite. “I’m not a serious birder. A lot of my colleagues who study seabirds were not originally trained as ornithologists but might have entered the field through wildlife or marine biology programs.” As someone who is captivated by animal migration in general, seabirds are the record-setters, and Harrison appreciates their special adaptations, such as long skinny wings, that allow them to harness the ocean winds and fly from pole to pole. “Seabirds are sentinels that can signal the state of the ocean to us back on land.”

In her off time, she sews clothes—Harrison wanted to be a fashion designer when she was a kid. She also kayaks, camps and visits her local comic book shop. In addition to the water, music has been a lifetime passion; she was the drum major for the Virginia Tech marching band and she continues to play the flute and piccolo in a community band in Annapolis, Maryland.

Integrating arts and sciences is a primary tool Autumn-Lynn uses to reach public audiences and decision-makers. She enjoys sharing her work with kids (she’s contributed science stories to videos and kid’s magazines) and she is inspired by other women in science who have also found success in their careers her. “This is a field that some people view is dominated by men. I had a lot of women role models growing up at a local wildlife refuge, and now am inspired daily by my women colleagues doing important research at the Smithsonian and across the globe. It’s heartening.”

Dark phase Parasitic Jaeger following a Black-legged Kittiwake that had been feeding in the waves. (Photo by Kate Persons for Smithsonian)

Near the end of the interview, Harrison mentioned in an “oh, by the way,” comment that she was “somewhat involved in the United Nations events focused on crafting a new treaty for the oceans.”

A major understatement, if you ask Eye on Science. In fact, since much of her scientific work informs international treaties, she was asked to present her research in front of the UN General Assembly. She had eight minutes to present, and she said, “It was more intimidating than my Ph.D. defense. There were flags of all the countries and nameplates everywhere, and they were wearing their little translator earpieces. I thought to myself, ‘OK, this is like I’m in a movie right now.’”

So, it’s confirmed: Autumn-Lynn Harrison is officially a migratory bird diplomat. She laughed when we suggested the title, but confirmed, “you have to be a diplomat when you’re studying migration.

“Migratory animals connect all of us,” Harrison concluded. “If we lose animals that connect us across countries, continents, and oceans, we’re losing a part of ourselves, a part of our culture, and part of our heritage.”

Eye on Science, our new biweekly series, will shine a light on our vast and varied body of work by bringing Smithsonian science into sharper focus. Eye on Science will tell the stories of the people behind the research, the discoveries they make and their inspiration. We will explore their passions, celebrate their contributions, and look more closely at how questions become solutions that can inform environmental policy, spur technological innovation, and promote community and collaboration across the globe.

Related posts:

Get a sneak peek at the Zoo’s new beak retreat this week A few of my favorite things: Pam Henson The Conversation: The rush to return humans to the Moon and build lunar bases could threaten opportunities for astronomy David Voyles named deputy director of SAAM