Subject: [Oversea] Australian Satellite-tagged Bar-tailed Godwits join New Zealand birds on migra [Print This Page] Author: HKBWS Surveyor Time: 8/04/2008 10:07 Subject: Australian Satellite-tagged Bar-tailed Godwits join New Zealand birds on migra
Australian Satellite-tagged Bar-tailed Godwits join New Zealand birds on migration
News from Asia Pacific Shorebird Network
07-4-2008
Today the first satellite transmission was received from a satellite-tagged Bar-tailed Godwit en route for the Yellow Sea from north Western Australia. H3 (a female) is now well on her way flying past the western side of Sulawesi and should be joining New Zealand satellite-tagged birds already in the Yellow Sea in the next few days. She left early yesterday morning (6th April) and had travelled about 1500 km when this transmission was received. Just give her a thought when you are sitting down eating your breakfast or dinner, she will still be in the air with nothing to eat or drink for several more days while she flies over the South East Asian coasts or seas to the tidal mudflats of the Yellow Sea between China and the Korean Peninsula.
Last year we watched in awe as Bar-tailed Godwits flew from New Zealand to various parts of the Yellow Sea then, after feeding in the Yellow Sea to put on enough fat, flew to Alaska to nest. After nesting the adult birds were then tracked by satellite flying across the Pacific Ocean, a distance of 11,000 km, non-stop back to New Zealand.
New Zealand Bar-tailed Godwits and those from eastern Australia are a different sub-species to the birds from the west of Australia and are thought to use different breeding grounds in the Arctic. Within the next two months we will hopefully find out these secrets!
New satellite transmitters were fitted to Bar-tailed Godwits in New Zealand and in the north-west of Australia in February this year. New Zealand birds left on their journey in mid-March and are already in the Yellow Sea putting on fat ready to fly to Alaska to breed. Bar-tailed Godwits from the coast of north-west of Australian generally leave later than the birds from south east Australia and New Zealand. This year's satellite tracking project has confirmed this.
You will be able to follow the journey of these birds on the USGS Alaska Science Centre web site http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/shorebirds/index.html.
What has happened to last year's birds? Although they are no longer sending signals to the satellites they are still flying about with their transmitters and have been seen and photographed in New Zealand (they should now be on their way back north to breed). The female, E5, which featured in an earlier story on this website landed in New Caledonia instead of New Zealand, because of bad weather, where she stopped transmitting. She was later seen and photographed on the New South Wales coast, in Australia and is now back in New Zealand where she was seen in February!
