Somewhere on the coast of Suriname is a pigeon-sized shorebird named Chinquapin, enjoying a well-deserved rest after an amazing odyssey that has spanned more than 4,700 miles since the bird was tagged in the southern United States last May.

Chinquapin is a whimbrel that was fitted with a radio transmitter in Georgia as part of a study to determine how far these avian critters fly and where they go after nature signals that it's time to move on each spring.

Chinquapin's travels began with a northerly excursion to the Northwest Territories in Canada, a breeding area just below the Arctic Circle, and included a nonstop southerly flight of nearly 3,500 miles to Puerto Rico, a distance the bird covered in five days.

After a two-week rest he flew another 1,300 miles to the South American nation of Suriname, and is currently within remote Coppename Monding Nature Preserve.

"It's an amazing journey and it is something to be awed and admired," Brad Winn, a biologist with Georgia's Department of Natural Resources, said in a news release issued Monday. "We don't know if he will stay at his current site -- whimbrels are known to spend winters on both coasts -- so it will be interesting to see where he goes."

The Georgia DNR is a partner in a longterm wimbrel-tracking study at the Center for Conservation Biology at William & Mary college. (A second Georgia whimbrel was tagged but its device has stopped transmitting.)

Whimbrel's are renowned long-distance travelers and it's hoped that by gaining more insight into their migration patterns scientists can more accurately pinpoint where shorebird habitat needs to be protected.

The marathon south-bound leg of Chinquapin's journey began on the morning of Aug. 5. He flew 600 miles over Hudson Bay, Canada; down the length of James Bay and over Quebec; over Maine and finally out over the Atlantic Ocean.

Chinquapin, who is named after the Georgia creek in which he was captured, appeared on a collision course with Tropical Storm Colin, which was churning northward toward Bermuda. But the savvy bird swung 300 miles to the east to avoid the storm's cyclonic winds and arrived in Puerto Rico on Aug. 10.

That's a distance of 3,470 miles or, as the DNR states, the equivalent of flying about five days around-the-clock across the U.S. from Boston to Anchorage, Alaska.

Whimbrels are a high-priority species included in Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan designed to conserve biological diversity.

Stated Winn: "These global migrants visit us on their migratory trek for about six weeks each spring to feast on the fiddler crabs in our marshes. The energy they get from our crabs supports them during the next 2,000- to 3,000-mile leg of their annual migration.

"If our marshes are destroyed or become polluted, the crabs will be gone and this vital link in the migratory chain will be lost."

Other partners in the study are the Nature Conservancy and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Scientists will continue to monitor Chinquapin's whereabouts until his transmitter stops sending a signal.

-- Top photo shows biologist Brad Winn with Chinquapin, the subject of a whimbrel tagging study. Bottom photo shows whimbrels in flight off Georgia. Both images are courtesy of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.