Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

INUVIK (July 30/99) - An international project under way in Inuvik is examining much more than why birds of a feather flock together.

It's also looking at why and how those flocks then migrate north and south.

At a public lecture held at the Invuik Research Centre on Friday, Susanne Akesson from Lund University in southern Sweden, shed a little light on 50 years of bird research and went on to speak of the current state of affairs.

"We know little about how animals that are relocated orient themselves," she said, "or how birds return to the exact same nesting ground every year or how sea turtles, for example, can return to the precise same beach."

Akesson explained that migratory studies are being carried out by various countries and that she herself travelled to the Russian Arctic coast to study wheatears -- birds whose migration is the longest in the world, taking it from well north of the Arctic Circle in summer to Africa in winter.

The professor said scientists have learned that birds rely on three main compasses for migration -- the sun, the stars and the world's geo-magnetic field. But she went on to explain that the precise combination and use of these compasses by birds is still not fully understood.

Akesson said Inuvik represents an attractive testing site because the stars are currently not visible and because the incline of the Earth's magnetic field is particularly steep here. She said an expedition leaving by ship from Tuktoyaktuk next week will relocate approximately 30 white crown sparrows from Inuvik to several camps between here and Iqaluit. By studying the birds' behaviour and contrasting it with a control group kept in Inuvik, the Swede said scientists will be able to learn more about how the birds navigate.

"The results might be used by man for navigation, but especially for conservation," she said. "By knowing the birds' limits of migration and relocation, we can predict how to save them if their habitat is lost."

Rachel Muheim is one of Akesson's students at Lund who will remain in Inuvik with the control group until the project is completed in September.

She said her own interest in birds began many years before university, when she was growing up in Switzerland.

"My parents were bird watchers and I guess I've always found them a bit of a challenge," she said. "In one way they're very easy to understand -- you can see their plumage and watch them moving around in the bushes. But with birds you can never predict anything, but that's what we're working on."

Ulf Ottoson is another Lund professor. He said he's not so concerned with the project's specific goals so much as unlocking a mystery.

"Our goal is basic research. We never know what the results will be and that's the only reason to do it," he said. "It's just to get a piece to put in the great jigsaw puzzle of knowledge."

But Ottoson admitted their are tangible benefits to chasing the birds halfway around the globe to Inuvik.

"To be able to camp here," he said.