Godwits Fly

Every year, godwits fly from Alaska to New Zealand in an astonishing six days. A Seattle-based husband and wife team have been following the migratory patterns of the tiny bird and write about their findings in The Christian Science Monitor. The couple write that the first people to discover New Zealand owed much to godwits. “One legend has it that ancestors of the Maori, who were living on a nearby barrier island at the time, observed the annual southward passage of what they called the kuaka. They thought, surely all those birds aren’t just circling the earth. Their outriggers, set sail, and found New Zealand.”