INCREDIBLE NON-STOP FLIGHT
WHILE we have been aware of the summer visits of bar-tailed godwits to our coastal wetlands for a long time, we are only now appreciating the extraordinary flights the birds undertake to come here.
Back in 1914, Charles Belcher wrote of the bar-tailed godwit – "In 1888 the birds were very plentiful, Mr.A.J.Campbell in that year seeing scores of them for sale in the Melbourne markets".
He wrote that in the Geelong region they "must now be classed as rare".
We still see them in small numbers each year, not strung up in markets but feeding in the shallows, thrusting their long, up-curved beaks into the sandy sediments in search of their favourite food.
Until recently we had little understanding of their incredible journeys from their breeding areas in north-east Siberia and north-west Alaska to Australia and New
Zealand, but gradually their secrets are being uncovered.
For many years, ornithologists caught the birds and fitted them with individually numbered legrings.
Then, with a lot of luck, banded birds would be found somewhere between Australia and the far north of Europe or America, gradually building a picture of the godwits’ flight-path.
When a new device was created, ornithologists were able to track the route the birds took and time needed to fly the distances involved.
Improvement to the tracking devices now gives more information and the latest figures are astonishing.
One godwit, just five months old, left south-west Alaska in October last year and flew out over the Pacific Ocean, past the Aleutian Islands and New Caledonia towards New Zealand before turning west to Tasmania.
It flew non-stop for 11 days and covered more than 13,000km, before landing at Ansons Bay.
Ironically it may have been heading to NZ, but took a wrong turn, finally reaching Tasmania instead.
Wildlife information and questions can be sent to ppescott@gmail.com