Bar-tailed godwits using Barr al Hikman wetlands for repeat stopovers: Study

An ongoing study has found that Barr al Hikman Wetlands Reserve in Mahout in Al Wusta is a lifeline for migratory birds specially the bar-tailed godwits with over 60,000 counted in 2016, representing 58–65 per cent of the flyaway population. The study has, for the first time, identified the migration routes, stopovers and breeding areas of the subpopulations of the bartailed godwits subspecies Limosa lapponica taymyrensis wintering at Barr al Hikman.

The study has revealed that the wetlands are used as repeat stopovers by the birds after ten female bar-tailed godwits of the subspecies Limosa wintering at Barr al Hikman were caught and fitted with 5g Solar Platform Transmitter Terminals (PTTs) in November 2015.

Bar-tailed godwits are known to breed on the Arctic coasts and tundra in Europe and Asia and spend the winters on the coast of tropical and temperate regions including the sultanate, Australia and New Zealand. From ringing and tracking data, the migration routes of almost all subspecies are well known with the notable exception of the population that winters around the shores of the Arabian Peninsula and Eastern Africa in the West Asia-East Africa shorebird flyway.

“The main objective was to monitor their movements from Argos satellite tracking system to reveal their previously unknown local movements and migration routes, including stopovers and breeding areas,” said Dr Andy Kwarteng, director, Remote Sensing and GIS Centre, Sultan Qaboos University.

The task was part of The Research Council-sponsored project on ‘Remote Sensing and Geospatial Data Analysis of Barr Al Hikman Intertidal Ecosystem: Implications of Cascading Predator-prey Effects in a Pristine Seagrass-based Food Web’ by researchers from SQU and NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research.

The birds started the northward spring migration in 2016 between February 29 and April 27 and travelled for 7,3008,300km to breeding areas located south of Yamal Peninsula in Siberia, Russia. All the birds used previously unknown staging areas on the east coast of the Caspian Sea or Aral Sea in Kazakhstan during migrations.

The surviving birds returned to the Barr al Hikman area between July 28 and August 23.

“Presently, the PTTs on five birds which have done the migration three years in a row are transmitting data. We lost the other five birds during their migration. The five birds showed some consistency in their repeat northward and southward migrations routes and the use of the stopovers and staging areas in 2016, 2017 and 2018,” he said.