A 5-month-old bar-tailed godwit has just broken the record for long-distance migration after flying 13,560 km non-stop in 11 days.
Every fall, millions of birds begin their perilous migration journey to warmer places. Many have flown impressive distances over 10,000 km. But this year, a small bird has surpassed all previous long-distance flight records.Last month, a striped-tailed ibis – which usually lives in swamps – flew from Alaska to New Zealand to winter. But for some reason during his exhausting journey, that little bird flew around a bit, causing its flight distance to be 500 km more than the original journey. That may seem like a small distance from the typical 13,000km journey, but a disparity that can have deadly consequences.
Eric Woehler of Birdlife Tasmania told ABC News: ‘Short-tailed albatrosses and leopards can swoop down to the surface to feed. But if the falcon lands in the water, it will die. It has no webbed feet, so it cannot emerge from the water. So if it falls into the water from exhaustion and bad weather, its life will end there.”
Scientists were able to track the bird’s record flight with the help of a device weighing 5 grams. Technological advances have allowed researchers to track such small birds without endangering them. Because adding an object of considerable weight to an organism weighing only 300 to 400 grams can put their life in danger.
Dr Woehler said: “It is one thing to attach a satellite tag to an albatross weighing 5kg or more, but technologically and ethically, attaching a tracking device to a bird that weighs only 300-400 gram is a completely different story.”
Recorded data show the five-month-old animal took off on October 13 from the Yukon Kuskokwim marshlands in Alaska, following the usual route across the Pacific Ocean down to New Caledonia and over the Tasman Sea, before made an unexpected 90-degree turn that caused it to head towards Tasmania, instead of its original destination of New Zealand.
Dr Woehler estimated that the bird lost at least half its body weight during the 11-day continuous flight, but it landed safely on land, setting a new Guinness record for distance traveled. bird habitat. The previous record was set in 2020 by another striped-tailed falcon with more than 12,000 km in 11 days.
Interestingly, scientists have not yet been able to explain why such tiny birds can make it through the record long distance without stopping and not getting lost.
