A juvenile bar-tailed godwit– understood just by its satellite tag number 234684– has actually flown 13,560 kilometres from Alaska to the Australian state of Tasmania without stopping, appearing to set a brand-new world record for marathon bird flights.
The five-month-old bird triggered from Alaska on 13 October and satellite information appeared to reveal it did not stop throughout its marathon flight which took 11 days and one hour.
Tagged in Alaska, the bar-tailed godwit, Limosa lapponica, flew at least 13,560 km (8,435 miles) prior to touching down at Ansons Bay in north-east Tasmania.
The previous record was held by a man of the exact same types– 4BBRW– that flew 13,000 km (8,100 miles) in 2015, beating his own previous record of 12,000 km the year prior to.
According to a Facebook post from the Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre in New Zealand, 4BBRW’s record had actually been “blown out of the water by this young upstart”.
Researchers track the bird utilizing a 5G satellite tag connected to its lower back.
According to information from limit Planck Institute for Ornithology’s bird tracking task, the migratory bird took a path to the west of Hawaii, continuing over open ocean and flying over the Pacific island country of Kiribati on 19 October.
Terrific news on ultramarathon flying Bar-tailed Godwits. Satellite tracked bird has actually flown NONSTOP from Alaska to Tasmania for the very first time! What a journey! Thanks @miranda_trust, Max Planck Institute and others for this work drawing our world together. Nature is wild! 1/2 pic.twitter.com/NnT0QtLCUx
— Andrew Darby (@looksouth) October 24, 2022
About 2 days later on the bird would have seen land once again, shooting over Vanuatu and continuing south taking a track about 620km east of Sydney and continuing in between Australia’s east coast and New Zealand.
On 23 October, the bird and any others flying with it took a sharp right and headed west to reach Tasmania on 25 October.
Sean Dooley, of BirdLife Australia, stated: “The most fantastic thing is that juveniles move individually to the grownups. Grownups remove from the Arctic in some cases as much as 6 weeks previously.”
Juveniles would invest that time fattening-up for the long migration south. “That bird is most likely to have actually remained in a flock. This record is for constant flying and it’s simply extraordinary,” Dooley stated.
He stated the birds had the ability to diminish their internal organs to make more area for fat shops.
The Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre stated it had actually produced keepsake tea towels for the previous record holder 4BBRW and might now need to have a brand-new set made.
