Report on the travels and status of NW Australian satellite-tagged Bar-tailed Godwits

Please remember when reading the information below that this is not the ‘final story’, these are the initial findings and may change when the final analysis is done. We also ‘join the dots’ between each signal, however the birds are so skilled at navigating that this is most likely the route they travel.

Dear Godwit watchers

I will be leaving for South Korea on Wednesday evening April 30th (taking a plane not flying myself) and so I wanted to take this opportunity to update you on the progress of the Broome Bar-tailed Godwits with the satellite transmitters.

In summary we have ten birds on the Chinese coast, one on the North Korea coast, three in Roebuck Bay and we have lost contact with one bird.

The project has had plenty of local media coverage and I am on the radio once a week, the local paper has covered the story as has the ABC TV. Another article for Outback magazine is underway as well. One of the great things about the project was that it got me in to the local schools and I gave presentations to about 450 kids at 5 schools. Some of the questions from the young kids were brilliant, many budding biologists out there!

Let’s start at the south and move north. We have three birds H0, H2 and C0 still in Roebuck Bay and it is almost certain they will stay there for the dry season. Maybe they were only 3 years old when we implanted the transmitters and not yet ready to breed? Maybe they are taking a year off (because of the transmitter?) This could be a strategy for long lived species if it seems to them too risky to migrate due to lack of condition, safer to take a year off than risk the arduous migration. C0 is the bird that left Roebuck Bay and went 300km NE and spent 12/03/08 to 10/04/08 at raft Point and Montgomery Reef before heading off on migration (or so we assumed). She then changed her mind (a woman’s prerogative!) and returned to Roebuck Bay. It appears that she stopped for a short time at Ashmore Reef or one of the Indonesian Islands before coming ‘home’. It is no surprise to us that H0 did not migrate as when she was seen on 12/04/08 she was very skinny and had nowhere near enough fat to fuel her on her migration.

H2 is still in the bay and transmitting good signals but we have not seen her. She did decide to go 120km SW to La Grange Bay but she was unimpressed and returned to Roebuck Bay 2 hours later!

We lost contact with C4 as she was flying along the coast of China. We hope tat it is a satellite transmitter issue and that we will get a record of her or see her back here in Roebuck Bay in September, but migration is likely to be the stage of these birds incredible life cycle when they are under most pressure and therefore when most mortality may occur.

C3 is 90km north of Chongming Dongtan National Nature Reserve, a reserve with close ties to Broome Bird Observatory and Roebuck Bay but unfortunately none of out transmitter birds called in there. H8 and H3 both stopped at these mudflats that are now home to C3, on their way to Yalu Jiang National Nature Reserve.

100km north of C3 is the temporary home to A9, C6 and H7. from the images on Google Earth it looks typical of much of the Chinese coast with large expanses of mudflats backed by reclaimed land with fish and crab ponds built behind sea walls. A7 is some 300km further north than those 3 birds.

Another 230km north is where C7 is residing; she is in the southern part of Bohai Bay right at the mouth of the Yellow River in Liaizhou Bay.

Continuing to the NNE for 420 km is the northern most part of Bohai Bay and this is where C2 is feeding up ready for her next leg of the journey to Yakutia in Siberia. She is the most northerly of all the birds. She is about 100km north of the Yalu Jiang birds in latitude but she is 230km NW of them ‘on the ground’.

Yalu Jiang National Nature Reserve, which is a very well known site for the New Zealand and SE Australian Bar-tailed Godwits, also attracts large numbers of NWA birds. H3, A3 and our only male H8 are there currently with 3 tracked birds from NZ. H8 was the first Broome bird to reach Yalu Jiang and if our thinking is correct he may leave a few days before the females to arrive at the breeding grounds and establish his territory before the females arrive, we shall see.

That just leaves one adventurous soul, H9, who is in North Korea about 110km east of the Yalu Jiang birds. The area she is in looks perfect, for a godwit, with large expanses of mud at a river mouth. H9 migrated on the afternoon/evening of 12/04/08. She was seen at a roost by Adrian Boyle and Maurice O’Connor between 1500 and 1550. She then reported in 666km north of Roebuck Bay at midnight. Her first report from North Korea, 6,300km, away was 0730 18/04/08.

We will need to wait for the final analysis from the satellite data to get a fully accurate picture of what she did but it looks pretty impressive.

The project continues to be a great success and inspire not only those of us working on it but many others, not least 450 Broome school kids!

The birds may stay in their current locations until they head to the breeding grounds but don’t bank on it! There is some suggestion that birds drift across to Korea before the final leg of their northward migration or they may head to Godwit Central – Yalu Jiang? Keep an eye on my website and that of the USGS and keep monitoring these amazing birds.

Cheers
Chris

For those of you not yet following the tracks of the NZ and Broome birds I recommend you do! It is fascinating stuff (but I would say that wouldn’t I?) To view the birds follow the information below.

The best way to follow the project is to visit the USGS site. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and there is a godwit icon: Click the godwit to download the kmz file/icon to your desktop. Click on the icon and this will open Google Earth, where you can view the globe with the travels of the godwits marked out on it. To view the birds follow the information below. When you click on the icon with a number you will be given a list of information. Note that the date is month/day/year and the time is UTC/Greenwich meantime, add 7 hours for WA and Chinese time. Korea is another one hour ahead.

• You will need Google Earth installed on your computer. It is a free download which you can get here »

can view the globe with the travels of the godwits marked out on it. You will need Google Earth installed on your computer. It is a free download which you can get here.

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