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Bar-tailed godwit breaks record for longest non-stop bird flight
Bernard Lagan, Sydney
Wednesday November 10 2021, 4.30pm GMT, The Times
The bar-tailed godwit broke his own world record when he flew over 8,000 miles from Alaska to Australia
GEOFF WHITE
A bird said to have the aerodynamics of a jet fighter has been tracked flying non-stop more than 8,000 miles from Alaska to Australia, setting a world record for continuous avian flight.
It was the second time the bird had broken the world record.
The bar-tailed godwit left southwest Alaska for his summer grounds in New Zealand on September 17 but hit strong winds over the Pacific, south of Fiji, forcing a detour far west to Australia.
Carrying a tiny solar-powered satellite tracking device, he landed at Tweed Heads, 500 miles north of Sydney at about 9.30am on September 27. He had flown non-stop for 8,108 miles, making the longest continuous land bird flight ever recorded.
The godwit, tagged and known as 4BBRW, flew for 239 hours (nearly ten days) on its journey over the Pacific.
By chance, Geoff White, a noted Australian bird photographer, spied the satellite transmitter on the bird five hours after it landed at an estuary near the border of Queensland and New South Wales, taking a series of close-up pictures. Only later did he learn of its significance.
“I was walking on the beach and I thought ‘that’s a special bird’ when I saw it,” White said.
Only when he checked 4BBRW’s tag reference online — signified by the blue, red and white rings on its legs — did he realise the bird’s enormous importance to international birdwatchers, even before its latest record-breaking flight.
Godwit 4BBRW last year wrested the 13-year world record at the time for the longest non-stop flight from a female godwitwhen he flew continuously for 7,500 miles from Alaska to New Zealand’s shorebird haven on the Firth of Thames on the North Island.
“I went home and Googled its tags and went ‘holy crap — that is the bird,’” said White.
In another twist to 4BBRW’s story, his first world record was beaten by about 125 miles when another female godwit landed in New Zealand from Alaska early on the morning of September 26.
The next day, 4BBRW landed in Australia, returning him the world record.
He has since left Australia and flew 1,200 miles to New Zealand where he arrived 11 days ago. He remains in obscurity among the thousands of other godwits massed for the summer, but not among bird watchers and avian experts.
“We shouldn’t be afraid to address the elephant in the room — his ego, his competitiveness and his inability to let others shine,” said Professor Phil Battley, a New Zealand ornithologist, who has long-studied the migration of godwits using satellite trackers.
Likened by some experts to a jet fighter because of their long, pointed wings and sleek shape, godwits have a highly efficient fuel-to-energy rate. Male bar-tailed godwits have a standard weight of up to 400g and gorge on molluscs, worms and aquatic insects before long flights, often doubling their size. They can also shrink their internal organs to lighten their load. There is some evidence that they can sleep during soaring and gliding flight.
While scientists are unsure of the specifics of the godwits’s navigation system, Battley said it is known that some birds can use stars and the movement of the sun to aid navigation.
“The amazing thing is that we know they can process this massive ocean and then come back eventually to exactly where they left from nine months earlier — in the same way that a sea bird can fly around the world and then land in a forest five metres from its burrow,” Battley said.
At the end of the New Zealand summer in early March, 4BBRW will again set out for Alaska, a journey immortalised by the wistful 1938 novel The Godwits Fly by the New Zealand writer Robyn Hyde. Hyde used the birds as a symbol of the longing many New Zealanders felt to leave for a wider world.
Bar-tailed godwit breaks record for longest non-stop bird flight
Bernard Lagan, Sydney
Wednesday November 10 2021, 4.30pm GMT, The Times
The bar-tailed godwit broke his own world record when he flew over 8,000 miles from Alaska to Australia
GEOFF WHITE
A bird said to have the aerodynamics of a jet fighter has been tracked flying non-stop more than 8,000 miles from Alaska to Australia, setting a world record for continuous avian flight.
It was the second time the bird had broken the world record.
The bar-tailed godwit left southwest Alaska for his summer grounds in New Zealand on September 17 but hit strong winds over the Pacific, south of Fiji, forcing a detour far west to Australia.
Carrying a tiny solar-powered satellite tracking device, he landed at Tweed Heads, 500 miles north of Sydney at about 9.30am on September 27. He had flown non-stop for 8,108 miles, making the longest continuous land bird flight ever recorded.
The godwit, tagged and known as 4BBRW, flew for 239 hours (nearly ten days) on its journey over the Pacific.
By chance, Geoff White, a noted Australian bird photographer, spied the satellite transmitter on the bird five hours after it landed at an estuary near the border of Queensland and New South Wales, taking a series of close-up pictures. Only later did he learn of its significance.
“I was walking on the beach and I thought ‘that’s a special bird’ when I saw it,” White said.
Only when he checked 4BBRW’s tag reference online — signified by the blue, red and white rings on its legs — did he realise the bird’s enormous importance to international birdwatchers, even before its latest record-breaking flight.
Godwit 4BBRW last year wrested the 13-year world record at the time for the longest non-stop flight from a female godwitwhen he flew continuously for 7,500 miles from Alaska to New Zealand’s shorebird haven on the Firth of Thames on the North Island.
“I went home and Googled its tags and went ‘holy crap — that is the bird,’” said White.
In another twist to 4BBRW’s story, his first world record was beaten by about 125 miles when another female godwit landed in New Zealand from Alaska early on the morning of September 26.
The next day, 4BBRW landed in Australia, returning him the world record.
He has since left Australia and flew 1,200 miles to New Zealand where he arrived 11 days ago. He remains in obscurity among the thousands of other godwits massed for the summer, but not among bird watchers and avian experts.
“We shouldn’t be afraid to address the elephant in the room — his ego, his competitiveness and his inability to let others shine,” said Professor Phil Battley, a New Zealand ornithologist, who has long-studied the migration of godwits using satellite trackers.
Likened by some experts to a jet fighter because of their long, pointed wings and sleek shape, godwits have a highly efficient fuel-to-energy rate. Male bar-tailed godwits have a standard weight of up to 400g and gorge on molluscs, worms and aquatic insects before long flights, often doubling their size. They can also shrink their internal organs to lighten their load. There is some evidence that they can sleep during soaring and gliding flight.
While scientists are unsure of the specifics of the godwits’s navigation system, Battley said it is known that some birds can use stars and the movement of the sun to aid navigation.
“The amazing thing is that we know they can process this massive ocean and then come back eventually to exactly where they left from nine months earlier — in the same way that a sea bird can fly around the world and then land in a forest five metres from its burrow,” Battley said.
At the end of the New Zealand summer in early March, 4BBRW will again set out for Alaska, a journey immortalised by the wistful 1938 novel The Godwits Fly by the New Zealand writer Robyn Hyde. Hyde used the birds as a symbol of the longing many New Zealanders felt to leave for a wider world.
