This  conservation classic was originally published in 1955. The Canadian author Fred Bodsworth tells the story of a lonely Eskimo curlew. The story describes its long and arduous journey from the Arctic coasts to South America and back, and his search for a partner.

During the short Arctic summer, the Eskimo curlew waits for a female, as in previous years. The instinct tells him that he needs to produce offspring, but there is simply no female coming. After several weeks of waiting in vain, he joins a flock of plovers to make the thousand-kilometer flight back to Argentina and, once there, set off again the next year. The lone survivor represents the entirety of a species that was threatened with extinction at the time of publication - and is now very likely extinct.

Author: Fred Bodsworth

Publisher: Counterpoint (1995)