Incredible Journey

The NZ bar-tailed godwit is officially the migratory champion of the avian world. The bird has been tracked from its summertime home in NZ to its breeding ground in Alaska, and back again, by an international group of researchers led by Massey University ecologist Phil Battley. A female bar-tailed godwit known as E7 was one of 13 birds satellite tagged in NZ at the beginning of the year. She flew non-stop for 10,200km to Yalu Jiang in China, then a further 5,000km to Alaska, before making another non-stop 11,500km journey back to NZ in September. “[It’s] just so far up from what we used to believe 10 years ago when we were thinking a five or 6,000km flight was extremely long,” said Battley.”Here we’ve doubled it.”