and you thought kiwis were flightless ;)
see previous | Our birds Polynesia |, | YK Bird Study Protocol | I haven’t heard anything this year about the bird sampling.
As the last bar-tailed godwits leave New Zealand estuaries on their northern migration to Alaska this week, Massey scientists will trace their journey via satellite-tagged individuals.
…Dr Battley says that while the 11,000 km southern migration of the godwit from Alaska to New Zealand is thought to be the longest non-stop migration of any bird, not much is known about their northern route… three birds have recently landed in the Yellow Sea, with one covering 11,000 km in just over seven and a half days, at an average speed of 56 km/hr.
The satellite track of the godwits’ navigation can be viewed online at:
and more information on the project is available at
Read more of our fascinating little bird [...]
The complete satellite map has to be viewed in Google Earth, unfortunately, but you can still see the trace for each bird.
Site Search Tags: bar-tailed+godwits, New+Zealand, Polynesia, satellite, USGS, migration, Western+Ecological+Research+Center, WERC
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If you compare the migration map with the ice pack map Where is… ice pack you’ll see the birds have precious little shore at the moment. They are also in the province which recently had human bird flu. But see the comment last year about Kolea
I’ll have a summary of all this by the end of the day.
My attention was drawn to the Godwits by an article in todays 2nd April, London Times. A Fascinating story of the recently completed non-stop flight of 6,000 miles from New Zealand to North Korea. It seems an incredidble feat by this fascinating little bird. Now I will read more in an effort to understand and appreciate fully this super God’s creature