A prayer of godwits
been documented by satellite-tracking transmitter to fly more than 11,000 kilometres non-stop from Alaska to Miranda, on the Firth of Thames. It took eight and a half days.
Farewell Spit, with its vast expanse of tidal mud flats on the inner beach, is a summer feeding grounds for godwits. There is a special memory when we walked from the inner beach across the dunes to the ocean. We knew that walking access on the spit is limited to four kilometres down the inner beach and two kilometres along the ocean beach. There are markers at these limits. We thought we’d meander along to the inner beach marker. Was it at the next driftwood tangle, past that hump of sand, around the next bend… Then we saw it, a red eye peering over a grassy hummock. A scramble to read the sign ‘‘No entry beyond here. Outer Beach > 15 min’’.
Into the dunes we went – and across the spit. There was a glint of water, the distant Tasman Sea, and another marker. We followed windshaped contours to the shoreline. To the east wavering tyre tracks led to a blurred black shape on the sand. A roost, in forbidden territory. Only rangers and eco-tour buses are allowed beyond this marker.
So we turned west along the incoming tide. And then... a mirage shimmering ahead became a huge flock of birds, waders, waiting like onlookers, above the high-tide mark. Oystercatchers in their granny shawls, and smaller birds scuttling through the roost. And at the heart of the roost – godwits, in their hundreds. Momentarily, I thought that many of the smaller birds were young godwits but no – godwits are full-grown when they reach our shores. These smaller birds were lesser Knots and turnstones, the small waders that also journey in stages from their breeding grounds in the far-away Arctic. More birds were winging in all the time. We stood there, unable to believe what we were seeing, but the camera had seen it too.
Days later, a storm full of wind and rain stirred up the sea and left piles of debris strewn along the beach at Collingwood. I moseyed along watching the surge of the sea when unexpectedly over a low mound I glimpsed a roost of godwits immediately in front of me, among a great spread of driftwood. I dropped to my knees and crawled along in the soft sand to peer over the ridge. Their movements were leisurely, unfussed, as they changed their positions. I watched some preening. It looked awkward with that extremely long bill, their neck had to be extended at a most ungainly angle. A moment later one of them stretched hugely, wings pointing skyward, and I sensed a long drawn-out yawn.
Every now and then a godwit makes its casual way through the resting flock. At times they hop along on one leg and I wonder if they have been injured in some way. But the next moment they are running with their longlegged stride making the other birds shift slightly out of the way before they all settle again with their bills tucked back neatly between their wings. Downtime, I suppose.
These frequent fliers of the Pacific are now newsworthy, and rightly so. Not only their arrival captures the headlines, but in March articles and pictures showed the godwits gathering for their return journey to Alaska. Sure enough, they are featured assembling at the Motueka Estuary. I wanted to capture my own photos of these godwits with their warm reddish colouring, their breeding plumage, before they flew north.
Sunshine, a light breeze blowing off the sea, firm sand to walk on.
In the distant sky from the end of the curving beach specks merged into a cloud and came towards us. There were too many to count as they streamed overhead. We heard the clear cry of godwits in their red plumage as they flew away towards the north. Were they the last of the godwits beginning their journey to the tundra breeding grounds?
We gazed after them until their shapes became flickering dots fading in the cloudless sky, until they were gone and the specks were just a memory.
Birds About Water is an occasional series about our region’s sea birds. It is based on Fay Bolt’s self-published book of the same name which can be found on Amazon.