Consider the Arctic tern: it can fly 50,000 miles a year. Author: Rob Caldwell Updated: 2:14 PM EDT April 8, 2021 PORTLAND, Maine — The course of Scott Weidensaul’s life was set, to a surprising degree, on an October day at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in the jagged hills of eastern Pennsylvania. “In the fall, when the winds from the northwest strike the side of the mountain, they deflect up,” he explains. “So you have this river of hawks and eagles and falcons and vultures that flow south along this northeast-to-southwest ridge.” Weidensaul had been lobbying his parents for years, asking them to take him there to watch the birds, and when he was 12 years old he finally got his wish.