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

This is another update now that we have birds already on return migration and back at Yalu Jiang in the northern Yellow Sea on the China/North Korea border.

In summary we have 2 birds alive and on southward migration, 7 birds alive on the New Siberian Islands, 3 in Roebuck Bay (they never left) and we have lost contact with 1 bird and 2 have died. 

Updates on each individual bird

We have three birds H0, H2 and C0 still in Roebuck Bay.

H0 is very much sticking to the rich inter-tidal mudflats in the NE of the bay around the Crab Creek area.

H2 is using similar areas of mudflat for foraging as H0 but a little further south and she has visited Bush Point a few times. Bush Point is 30km SW of Crab Creek at the south end of the Bay.

C0’s movements are very similar to H2.

C2 was on her ‘breeding territory’ from May 29 to June 25 when she flew 260km north to an area of tundra just inland from the coast. Then on July 2 she moved to the southernmost of the New Siberian Islands (NSI), L’yakhov, and hence on to Kotel’ny and Faddejevski. Where she arrived on July 9 and where she remains giving good accurate signals.

C3 gave us a good track of her flight in to her ‘breeding territory’ arriving on May 27 or 28. On June 9th she appeared to have taken a 100km journey to the SE before returning to whence she had come from and then followed this up with another return trip to the SE, this time of 200km each way. This restless individual then headed north towards the NSI on June 30. She stopped along the way even though this is only a 380km journey. She has remained on L’yakhov and unlike the other birds she has not moved the further 250km to Kotel’ny and Faddejevski.

We lost contact with C4 as she was flying along the coast of China. We hope that 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.

C6 has also roamed away from her presumed ‘core breeding territory’. She moved on June 4 to 6 was 256km due south of her supposed ‘breeding territory’ but returned. It seems odd to me for the birds to be moving away from their ‘breeding territory’ and hopefully it doesn’t mean that their nest failed for some reason. C6 then did as every other bird and left for the NSI. She left on June 22 and arrived on June 23 after a brief stop at a site many other birds used on their journey to NSI. She used both L’yakhov and Kotel’ny and Faddejevski Islands before starting her southward migratory flight on July 11. The last reading we got from her was from 500km NE of Yalu Jiang. Will she go there and join H3 or to a North or South Korea n mudflat or back to where she staged on northward migration, 200km north of Chongming Dontang?

C7 was the most westerly of our birds at 140 54E and she behaved in the same way as the previous two birds and between June 4 and 6 was 165km south of her marshy breeding area in some hilly country but then returned to her ‘core area’. She left there on June 24 and broke her journey briefly just inland from the northern Siberian coast and arrived on L’yakhov on June 27 and remains on the southern NSI Island but is roaming around.

H3 was the first to leave Roebuck Bay the first to arrive in the Yellow Sea the first to leave the Yellow Sea and first to arrive in Siberia. She still leads the way and is now back in Yalu Jiang in the northern Yellow Sea of China. She used both L’yakhov and Kotel’ny and Faddejevski Islands from June 21 until starting her southward migratory flight on the same day as C6. She arrived back at Yalu Jiang on July 13 or 14.

H7 had remained at her presumed breeding site since her arrival on May 30 but unfortunately she seems to have died around June 9 based on the readings from her temperature sensor.

H8, our only male carrying a transmitter, was only hours behind H3 on northward migration and they did very similar journeys both taking a short break in the southern Yellow Sea just north of Shanghai before moving to Yalu Jiang in northern China on the border with North Korea. They then ended up within 60km of each other on the vast tundra breeding grounds. H8 moved 700km west to the NSI and he has been there from June 21 (the same date as H3) and he is still there giving strong signals.

H9 was the bird that had the most easterly location in the Yellow Sea being our only adventurous soul to use North Korea for her staging area. She has a very similar story from the breeding grounds and particularly the journey to the NSI, which is very similar for every bird. The short trip to NSI being broken with a stop in the region of 72 05N 148 34E and moving through L’yakhov to Kotel’ny and Faddejevski. She is still on Faddejevski as of her last transmission.

A3 we got a fantastic track of A3 in to her Siberian breeding location as her transmitter was on as she arrived. She has settled on low mountain slopes and is sticking to a very small area suggesting she will remain and breed there. She may already be laying or incubating! This optimistic report has changed as she seems to have died or been killed on about June 9. Her temperature sensor indicates this was her fate.

A7 had landed some 480km south of most birds in very different looking terrain. She is in the Taiga belt, it is unclear why she has chosen this habitat. She moved 30km north on June 6 but only within the same habitat. She remained here until June 27 and then flew 540km to one of the regular staging areas and then to the next as birds head to NSI. Massive numbers of NWA Bar-tailed Godwits must use these areas if our 15 sat tagged birds are a representative sample. A7 has used the western area of Kotel’ny and roamed less than other birds.

A9 has been very good to us and timed her departure from the Yellow Sea and her arrival on to the breeding grounds when her transmitter was on. She has remained more settled than some birds but has been on short explorations of about 11km away from the core area she transmits from. She was here from May 29 to June 27 or 28 and then did the ‘standard’ move to NSI. She is also inhabiting the western area of Kotel’ny.

There is so much to discuss arising from this fantastic project. It seems that none of the birds were in one place long enough to breed successfully this year with generally Bar-tailed Godwits needing 7weeks from arrival to fledging of chicks. It is possible that females leave the breeding territory before males and chicks but even with that scenario it seems that no birds bred successfully. I need to contact Pavel for his experience about this.

The snow cover images that have been provided to me by David Douglas are intriguing with birds appearing to arrive at the breeding grounds with heavy snow cover still in place and then move to NSI while those islands still have snow cover. Why would they do that?

And the prediction by Pavel Tomkovich suggesting the birds may go to NSI to fatten up for their southward migration proved 100% correct.

Many thanks to all involved with the project and particularly to Lee Tibbitts for all her regular updates summaries and Google Earth grabs.

Now we cross our fingers for the batteries to last as well as the ones in the NZ birds did last year and see if we can track the southward migration. Don’t turn off yet folks!

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 »

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