Using art and science to understand birds and climate change

Watson Fellowship awardee Wriley Hodge ’24 will spend a year following the migration of Arctic terns and studying the human communities they impact.Through writing, painting, and science, Hodge will record and reflect on the terns’ international journey and the impacts on human communities along the way. As they travel from the top of the Northern Hemisphere to the bottom of the globe, Hodge will immerse themselves in the cultures and ways of life of island communities that are deeply entangled in the lives of seabirds.

“The fate of people on islands is inextricably linked to the fate of birds, and together they face existential threats,” Hodge wrote in their project proposal. “Overfishing, declines in sea ice, rising seas, oil development, and invasive species all threaten the safety that islands provide for seabirds and humans alike.”

They’ll begin in Iceland, looking at culturally important puffin and eiderdown harvests. Next are the Faroe Islands, where people still hunt whales and seabirds; this will give Hodge a valuable opportunity to glimpse a place where global changes collide with island ways of life. Once the northern summer ends, Hodge will travel south to Falklands and South Georgia, ideally making the tremendous journey by boat as a way to experience the journey closer to how a migratory seabird would.

At each island, Hodge plans to collaborate, live with, and engage in the day-to-day lives of community members and artists. They plan to conduct surveys and collaborate with researchers and conservation groups along the way.

Watson Fellowship awardee Wriley Hodge ’24, left, banding birds at the COA Alice Eno Field Research Station on Great Duck Island. Hodge will spend a year following the Arctic tern migration as part of his Watson award.
Credit: Michael Hudson“In examining these islands, I hope to understand how to conserve some of the most diverse and important ecosystems on earth,” Hodge says. “Where do people find the hope to dedicate their lives in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges? What is our role at these edges of the world?”

Hodge’s journey will follow the extraordinary migratory path of the Arctic tern in both matter and spirit, they say.

“It’s this idea of emulating that migration, taking upon myself a journey of equal magnitude,” Hodge says, “and along the way I’m going to immerse myself in islands and experience the interface between people and seabirds on those islands.”

Hodge seeks to understand how the lives of island dwellers and seafaring birds are changing in response to large-scale, systemic global change, and how people are working to conserve these important birds, cultural heritages, and ways of life. Their journey comes at a crucial time: Global seabird populations have declined by 70% since the 1950’s, they say.

The Watson Fellowship is a one-year grant program allowing selected fellows to explore areas of interest anywhere in the world while giving them an unusual, sustained, and demanding opportunity for growth, critical examination of their own lives and American society, and a greater awareness of international subtleties. Fellows are given $40,000 dollars and are expected to meet new people, make new connections, and learn new things about themselves, the world, and their chosen subjects as they travel over the course of their Watson year. Hodge will be the 38th Watson fellow chosen from COA since the college became a partner institution in 1983.

The COA Alice Eno Field Research Station on Great Duck Island is a popular spot for ecology and natural history studies at College of the Atlantic. Watson Fellowship awardee Wriley Hodge '24 has spent several summers on the island during his time at COA.“Wriley Hodge is one of the most outstanding students I’ve ever had the privilege to work with, and so it’s just an incredibly joyful thing,” says COA W.H. Drury Professor of Ecology and Natural History John Anderson. “I know how much they really wanted this, and sometimes it’s really sweet to see somebody achieve their heart’s desire.”

The self-directed, experiential nature of COA’s human ecology degree has given Hodge the foundations necessary to dive into their Watson year, they say.

“In many ways this feels like a very logical next step,” Hodge says. “I’ve been studying seabirds through the lenses of art and science, doing research and printmaking and painting, all as a way to learn how to understand and see these birds. It’s been very place based on this island and surrounding islands and this landscape; this project is a very similar framework but applied to a vastly different scale.”

This award wasn’t the product of a spur of the moment decision, Hodge says, but rather an idea that came to fruition over the course of a few years. “The whole time I’ve been at COA, I’ve been crafting this idea in my mind. And the concept just sort of trickled into existence,” Hodge says.

For three summers during their time at COA, Hodge has been working at the COA Alice Eno Field Research Station on Great Duck Island, where they say they have always felt sad when the season comes to an end. That feeling, and wanting to spend more time doing similar activities, was part of what led them to work toward something like the Watson.

“This year, I was watching this happen, and I realized, okay, it’s also time for me to go. And that was the moment where I decided that I’ve had this idea and I was really going to work to make it happen. And then it did,” they say with a sparkle in their eyes.

When they found out they had won the fellowship award, Hodge says that they ran to the top of a hill and yelled triumphantly to the sky before calling family members to share the news.

“My mom was on her snack break, cause she’s a teacher. And then she put me on speaker, and she was like, ‘Everybody cheer for Wriley!’ And all these little kids were like, ‘Whoooot!’ And that was really exciting,” Hodge says.