Long-distance Migration

Have you ever wondered how birds migrate? Where do they go and how far do they travel at a stretch? The people at USGS did and they have a project to track Bar-tailed Godwits from New Zealand to their breeding grounds in Alaska. Here's a quote from the USGS website.

This is the first attempt to directly track godwits on their northward migration.

We know that most of the godwits need to stop at the Yellow Sea region to gain enough weight to fly to their breeding grounds. They must also have enough reserves to establish nesting territories and lay eggs at a time when there is not much food to eat. How they get there from NZ, and how they behave when migrating from Asia to Alaska is unknown. Once the godwits are in Asia, do they ‘refuel’ at one site or move northwards stopping on their way? Hopefully all will be revealed shortly!

If you'd like to learn more including seeing actual migration tracks, visit their website at http://www.werc.usgs.gov/sattrack/shorebirds/index.html. I downloaded the tracking information into Google Earth to see some of the migration routes and learned that one of the birds flew 2,338 miles in 47 hours at an average speed of 49.5 miles per hour!

While we're highly unlikely to see any Bar-tailed Godwit here, we do occasionally see other godwit species and plenty of other migrants. How they manage this feat year after year is fascinating to me - and its not like they get training at it; they just do it! I've seen plenty of Bar-tailed Godwit in Australia and would love to go an see them in Alaska....one day!