Richard Collins: Elegant godwit sets the record for the longest single flight by a bird

A GPS tag allowed researchers track the 11-day 13.5k journey from Alaska to Tasmania

Bar-tailed godwits stand on the beach at Marion Bay in Australia's Tasmania state. A young bar-tailed godwit appears to have set a non-stop distance record for migratory birds by flying at least 13,560 kilometers (8,435 miles) from Alaska to the Australian state of Tasmania. Picture: Eric Woehler via AP

A new record has been set for the longest single flight by a bird; a wader travelled, non-stop, from Alaska to Tasmania. The bar-tailed godwit had a GPS tag and a solar energy device, enabling its movements to be tracked by researchers.

On October 13, according to Birdlife Tasmania, the five-month-old bird left southwest Alaska and headed out over the Pacific past the Aleutian Islands and on towards Japan. Veering southwards, it traversed the world’s largest ocean. Having skirted the coast of Australia, the intrepid voyager moved on to Anson’s Bay on the north-eastern tip of Tasmania. The journey took 11 days and nights to complete. According to the Max Planck Institute, the godwit travelled a total of 13,560km.

Flight of the bar-tailed godwit #234684. Map by Adrian Riegan Pūkorokoro-Miranda Shorebird Centre

The previous record for a non-stop flight was held by another bar-tailed godwit. It flew from Alaska to New Zealand, two years ago, and went on to trump its own record by making an even longer journey the following year. That there should be yet another such flight now, and by a different bird, suggests that such feats may not be accidental freak occurrences but par-for-the-course with bar-tailed godwits in the Pacific Rim.

We don’t know the sex of the new record-holder, but how did this avian Charles Lindberg, or Amelia Earhart, carry enough fuel for such a journey? It seems that godwits do so by metabolising all those muscles which are not used when flying. As a result, the bird loses weight as the journey progresses. At the end of its ordeal, the voyager may have lost half of its body-weight.

Black-tailed godwit

Godwits, although common on Irish estuaries in winter, are not so well known to the public here, at least compared to their larger distant relative, the curlew. This seems odd because the slim medium-sized wader, with a very long slightly-upturned bill, is especially elegant. Of the two godwit species wintering in Ireland, however, the black-tailed is the one with film-star looks. It’s taller and more colourfully marked than its much more adventurous relative, the bar-tailed.

Perhaps the ‘half-curlew's’ anonymity results from its rather obscure name. ‘God wit’ means ‘good creature’ — good to eat that is, the ‘daintiest dish in England’. Table quiz enthusiasts will know that a group of black-tailed godwits is termed a ‘godliness’, while the collective noun for the bar-tails is ‘ungodliness’. Curlews call out their name but godwits, generally silent outside the breeding season, don’t.

Our bar-tails, like their American counterparts, are also great travellers. They don’t breed in Ireland but those hailing from Scandinavia, Finland, and Siberia east to the Taymyr Peninsula, migrate down the European coast, stopping at traditional locations, such as Dundalk Bay, to rest and refuel before continuing their journey southwards. Some reach the Cape of Good Hope.

Eastern Black-tailed Godwit

Pat Smiddy, in the Birds of County Cork, notes that one ringed at Lough Beg in 1988 was in Guinea-Bissau in March 1993. Most of these wanderers move on from our shores but some stay here for the winter.

There are godwit mysteries. According to The Migration Atlas, about 70% of the bar-tails, caught by ringers, at the Moray Firth, are males. Also, females winter further south in Africa than males.