Whether human or non, one of Nature’s great mysteries is migration. How is it—why is it—that life on Earth makes such movement possible? Think about it—against all odds, a creature ups and leaves one place to go somewhere else. Isn’t that astonishing?

I have two thoughts. First is the Greek epic poem, the Odyssey, the story of the hero Odysseus who ends up leaving his wife and son to fight the Trojan war, after which he takes ten more years to return as he faces more harrowing conflicts and treacheries. Second, since migration happens, what protects and guides wildlife to successful ends and beginnings?

In the poem, Odysseus, sensing his absence will be long, appoints his friend Mentor to serve as protector of the house and as teacher and advisor to his son. But because Mentor has particular flaws, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war and a fighter for just causes, and a great admirer of Odysseus, takes to disguising herself at crucial times to ensure Odysseus’s success and that Mentor will not fail in his duty as a guide.

Although we’re unlikely to rely on gods and goddesses to save us; still, we must recognize the natural world faces great danger. Battles lurk ahead. What will guide us wisely? It must be science, evolution, and us—three essential powers necessary to understand Nature’s warnings of precarious futures.

In especial peril is non-human animal migration. As for birds, in 2019, ornithologists published a report concluding that since 1970, the North American continent has lost nearly 30 percent of its total breeding population. Even “loathsome” nonnative birds are faring badly: house sparrow down 80%; European starling down 50%. This is simply unsustainable.

Yet, whether it be bat, insect, or bird, how can we not see migration as miraculous? And as human technology gets better in enabling scientists to delve more deeply into its mysteries, migration’s wonders never cease. For years I’ve studied migration; still, Scott Weidensaul’s 2019 publication of A World on the Wing has left me more awed than ever. Think that each spring, “an average of 2,060,300,00 birds pass” through the Gulf of Mexico! How do birds avoid bumping into each other? Says Weidensaul, it’s technology and research that discovered a “migrating songbird, flying through the night, (giving) short, simple call notes—essentially anticollision alarms, a way to avoid hitting any of the thousands or tens of thousands of other birds using the same air space.” And how do birds know to do this? First it’s evolution. But second it’s science ever teaching us about the phenomenon of evolution.

And then what about birds navigating as they fly thousands of miles in the night? Scientists used to think that the presence of magnetic iron crystals in the heads of birds provided this guidance. But recent findings indicate that it’s actually a bird’s vision, via “a form of quantum entanglement,” that helps birds see earth’s magnetic field. Quantum entanglement? Who knew? Only science could ascertain such a marvel.

And what about other “little” abilities few of us ever think about. Weidensaul tells us that before taking off for migration, “birds can bulk up with new muscle mass without really exercising…,” a mystery that science researchers have yet to solve. Another feat of evolution is how migration began in the first place. Scientists have speculated about this for decades, but recent research lends “credence to what’s known as the ‘pathogen escape’ hypothesis, which suggests bird migration evolved in part from pressure to leave tropical regions “where disease rates are high,” thus avoiding threats to the health of offspring.

We see ourselves as the smartest kids on the block and we have science as evidence. Yet, I think of Zeus’s declaration on Page 1 of the Odyssey: “See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing but their own folly.” Although the Odyssey ends happily, I worry that our ending will find us still deep in follies.