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Bar-tailed Godwit

Bar-tailed Godwit

Limosa lapponica

Identify the Bar-tailed Godwit by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

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The Bar-tailed Godwit is a large, long-distance migratory wader with a very long, slightly upturned bill, brick-red breeding plumage and a finely barred tail. It breeds on Arctic tundra and northern bogs from northern Europe to Alaska and winters on temperate and tropical coasts, from western Europe and Africa to Australia and New Zealand. Some populations make the longest known non-stop flights of any bird.

Did you know?

  • Birds of the Alaskan population fly non-stop across the Pacific to New Zealand – over 11,000 km without feeding.
  • It was named by Linnaeus in 1758.

Voice

Call
Flight call

About the species

Identification

A large wader with a very long, slightly upturned bill, pinkish at the base, and bluish-grey legs. In breeding plumage the throat, breast and belly are brick-red; in winter they are pale, and the back is grey and streaked. The wings are dark without a white wing bar, and a white rump extends as a wedge up the back; the tail is finely barred. Told from Black-tailed Godwit by the lack of a wing bar, the barred tail and shorter legs.

Family

Scolopacidae

Size

Large (crow)

Colours

orange, brown, white, black

About the habitat

Breeds on Arctic tundra and taiga bogs; on migration and in winter tidal mudflats, estuaries and sandy shores.

Diet

On mudflats and estuaries mainly bristle worms and shellfish probed from soft sediment; on the breeding grounds insects and other invertebrates, occasionally plant material.

Behaviour

Strongly migratory, travelling in flocks and making very long, often non-stop flights; to fuel them it builds huge fat reserves and even shrinks its digestive organs. It forages by probing mud and sand. It nests in a shallow ground scrape on tundra or bogs; both parents incubate, and the chicks are precocial.

Sources

Photo: Andreas Trepte, CC BY-SA 2.5 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bar-tailed Godwit.jpg

Sound: Teet Sirotkin, XC1157631, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/1157631

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC730620, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/730620

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions + Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0; Wikipedia: CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar-tailed_godwit

See also