Godwits tracked across the globe

[Grant]

The kiwi might be New Zealand's iconic flightless bird, but another inhabitant of these antipodean islands more than makes up for the kiwi's ground-dwelling nature.


The bar-tailed godwit (Limosa lapponica baueri) - or kuaka in the Maori language - sets off at the end of each austral summer for Alaska, stopping en route in Asia.

This year, for the first time, scientists have tracked the godwits' northern route with satellite tags. And it shows the godwits really are the champion migrants of the avian world. "When you feel them in your hands, they're not fragile little things," says Massey University ecologist Dr Phil Battley, the New Zealand coordinator for the international study. "They are built to travel. They get incredibly fat. When you get a really fat one, it almost has trouble balancing - it's like it has a pound of butter under its skin. "Once they get into the air, it's flap-flap, and that's all they do really."

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Godwits' epic journey tracked