The transpacific trek from Alaska to Tasmania took 11 days.
A bar-tailed godwit on the way. Image credit: Leo
A little bar-tailed godwit has just broken the record for the longest non-stop flight, topping the previous record by some seven hundred kilometers. The young bird has flown at least 8425 miles (13,560 kilometers) from Alaska to the Australian state of Tasmania, never ever stopping on the way.
For years, scientists at Pūkorokoro Miranda Naturalists’ Trust in New Zealand have used satellite trackers to monitor round trips of godwits (Limosa lapponica) around New Zealand. And while they tracked a 13,050 km (8,435 miles) record last year, this spring a juvenile specimen born in the Alaskan spring has beaten it all. Instead of heading for New Zealand, she decided to make a sharp right turn in the Tasman Sea, to finally land in Tasmania. The flight took 11 days.
Sean Dooley of BirdLife Australia told IFLScience these birds cover a wide range over the coast of eastern Australia, but they don’t go farther from their breeding grounds than Tasmania, so a new record would unlikely to beat the present one by much.
What’s more, the bird probably wasn’t a lone hero. Godwits tend to do long-haul flights in flocks, a strategy with migrating birds. It makes them more safe from predators, while they can also take turns cruising in each other’s wake, like cyclists do in a peloton.
Godwits take turns cruising in each other’s wake, like cyclists do in a peloton. Image credit: KazKuro
Satellite tracking has transformed our knowledge of bird migrations. “We used to think they stopped on route,” Dooley told IFLScience. “But there are not many places to land” mid-Pacific. The record breaker did fly over Vanuatu, however, but Dooley noted that the lands the birds cross on route, “are generally not good feeding places for these birds.” That said, godwits have been spotted on Pacific Islands, presumably gathering strength to restart the journey.
So, trackers in themselves cannot answer the mystery of how migratory birds, like godwits, know which way to go.
Like, for example, was the record breaker always heading for Tasmania, or did it got diverted from New Zealand?
Probably the best flyer on earth. Image credit: Grandpa@50
Anyway, what we (probably) know is that these birds can fly more than anybody else on this planet.
