Bar-tailed Godwit Limosa lapponica Scientific name definitions

The bird's somewhat upturned bill gives it a pug-nosed appearance that well befits its impudence and audacity. In spite of the fact that it often becomes a source of considerable annoyance to the ornithologist when he is trying to become acquainted with some wary bird, this Asiatic visitor has a peculiar charm of daring which quickly established it as my favorite tundra shorebird.

Brandt 1942 Brandt, H. (1942). Alaska Bird Trails: An Expedition by Dog Sled to the Delta of the Yukon River at Hooper Bay. The Bird Research Foundation, Cleveland, OH, USA. Close , Alaska Bird Trails

The “audacity” of the Bar-tailed Godwit, alluded to by many early observers, is characteristic of breeding individuals. Whether nesting near potential predators, attack-mobbing species many times its size, or arbitrarily dive-bombing nonthreatening species during courtship displays, the Bar-tailed Godwit is an active and dynamic member of tundra bird communities from northern Alaska west to Scandinavia. In fact, recent evidence suggests that nest-site selection, mobbing behavior, brood movements, and perhaps even this godwit's geographic distribution may all be mediated by interactions with other species, particularly large shorebirds, that attack-mob predators. A dearth of information concerning Bar-tailed Godwit demographic parameters, however, has thus far precluded anything more than speculation about the adaptive significance of these behaviors. In fact, surprisingly little is known about major aspects of this species' natural history, particularly on the breeding grounds.

In the nonbreeding season, flocks with tens of thousands of individuals can be found at favored sites along temperate, subtropical, and tropical coastlines from Europe and western Africa to New Zealand. Across the vast longitudinal range occupied by this species, several forms have evolved, although the number, geographic limits, and zones of contact of these forms remain to be definitively determined, particularly in Australasia and Beringia.

Perhaps no aspect of the Bar-tailed Godwit's natural history is as compelling as the fall migration of the North American form, Limosa lapponica baueri . After breeding across subarctic and arctic tundra in western and northern Alaska, nearly 100,000 individuals depart from the Bering Sea coast of Alaska in September or early October, many apparently on a nonstop flight to Australia and New Zealand, a distance of 11,000 kilometers. Commensurate with such a lengthy migration, these godwits carry the greatest fat loads of any migrant bird studied to date. Individuals apparently accommodate such prodigious amounts of fat by reducing the size of their digestive apparatus prior to departing on what may be the longest nonstop migration of any bird in the world.

Published data on Bar-tailed Godwit biology in North America are extremely limited. Information includes anecdotal natural history (Nelson 1887a Nelson, E. W. (1887). Birds of Alaska with a partial bibliography of Alaska ornithology. In Report upon Natural History Collections Made in Alaska Between the Years 1877 and 1881 (H. W. Henshaw, Editor). Signal Service, U.S. Army, Arctic Series Publication 3. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, USA. pp. 19–226. Close , Conover 1926 Conover, H. B. (1926). Game birds of the Hooper Bay region, Alaska. Auk 43 (2):162-180. Close , Brandt 1942 Brandt, H. (1942). Alaska Bird Trails: An Expedition by Dog Sled to the Delta of the Yukon River at Hooper Bay. The Bird Research Foundation, Cleveland, OH, USA. Close , Bailey 1948 Bailey, A. M. (1948). Birds of Arctic Alaska. Colorado Museum of Natural History, Popular Series 8. Close , Gabrielson and Lincoln 1959 Gabrielson, I. N., and F. C. Lincoln (1959). The Birds of Alaska. Stackpole Company, Harrisburg, PA, USA. Close ), distribution (most in general avifaunal reviews; e.g., Pitelka 1974 Pitelka, F. A. (1974). An avifaunal review for the Barrow region and North Slope of Arctic Alaska. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 6:161–184. Close , Kessel and Gibson 1978 Kessel, B., and D. Gibson (1978). Status and distribution of Alaska birds. Studies in Avian Biology 1:1–100. Close , Gill et al. 1981 Gill, Jr., R. E., M. R. Petersen and P. D. Jorgensen. (1981). Birds of the north-central Alaska Peninsula, 1976-1980. Arctic 34:286-306. Close , Kessel 1989 Kessel, B. (1989). Birds of the Seward Peninsula, Alaska: Their Biogeography, Seasonality and Natural History. University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks, AK, USA. Close , Gill and McCaffery 1999 Gill, Jr., R. E. and B. J. McCaffery. (1999). Bar-tailed Godwits Limosa lapponica in Alaska: a population estimate from the staging grounds. Wader Study Group Bulletin 88:49-54. Close ), habitat and migration (Gill and Handel 1990 Gill, Jr., R. E. and C. M. Handel. (1990). The importance of subarctic intertidal habitats to shorebirds: a case study of the central Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, Alaska. Condor 92:709-725. Close ), brood-rearing behavior (Lanctot et al. 1995 Lanctot, R. B., Jr. Gill, R. E., T. L. Tibbitts, and C. M. Handel (1995). Brood amalgamation in the Bristle-thighed Curlew Numenius tahitiensis: process and function. Ibis 137:559–569. Close ), foraging ecology (McCaffery 1998b McCaffery, B. J. (1998b). Implications of frequent habitat switches in foraging Bar-tailed Godwits. Auk 115:494-497. Close ), and Alaskan observations of birds banded on the nonbreeding grounds (McCaffery and Gill 1999 McCaffery, B. J. and Jr. Gill, R. E. (1999). Australasian waders in Alaska. Tattler 21:4-5. Close ). Studies of breeding biology of Palearctic populations are also limited (Kondratiev 1982 Kondratiev, A. Y. (1982). Biology of waders on the tundra of northeast Asia (in Russian). Nauka, Moscow, Russia. Close , Byrkjedal et al. 1989 Byrkjedal, I., T. Larsen and J. Moldsvar. (1989). Sexual and antagonistic behaviour of Bar-tailed Godwits on the breeding grounds. Ornis Scandinavica 20:169-175. Close , Larsen and Moldsvor 1992 Larsen, T. and J. Moldsvor. (1992). Antipredator behavior and breeding associations of Bar-tailed Godwits and Whimbrels. Auk 109 (3):601-608. Close , Yésou et al. 1992 Yésou, P., I. I. Chupin and V. I. Grabovsky. (1992). Notes on the breeding biology of the Bar-tailed Godwit Limosa lapponica in Taimyr. Wader Study Group Bulletin 66:45-47. Close , Larsen and Grundetjern 1997 Larsen, T., and S. Grundetjern (1997). Optimal choice of neighbour: predator protection among tundra birds. Journal of Avian Biology 28:303–308. Close ). Studies of L. l. baueri during the nonbreeding period are more extensive and have been recently summarized in Higgins and Davies 1996 Higgins, P. J., and S. J. J. F. Davies (editors). (1996). Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic birds. Volume 3. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Close ; most concern distribution (Riegen 1999 Riegen, A. (1999). Movements of banded Arctic waders to and from New Zealand. Notornis 46:123-142. Close , Sagar et al. 1999 Sagar, P. M., U. Shankar, and S. Brown (1999). Distribution and numbers of waders in New Zealand, 1983–1994. Notornis 46:1–43. Close ), migration (Barter and Wang 1990 Barter, M. and T. H. Wang. (1990). Can waders fly non-stop from Australia to China? Stilt 17:36-39. Close , Battley 1997 Battley, P. F. (1997). The northward migration of Arctic waders in New Zealand: departure behaviour, timing and possible migration routes of Red Knots and Bar-tailed Godwits from Farewell Spit, north-west Nelson. Emu 97:108-120. Close , Wilson and Barter 1998 Wilson, J. R. and M. A. Barter. (1998). Identification of potentially important staging areas of "long jump" migration waders in the east Asian-Australasian flyway during northward migration. Stilt 32:16-27. Close ), taxonomy and molt (Barter Barter 1989b Barter, M. (1989b). Bar-tailed Godwit Limosa lapponica in Australia. Pt. 1: races, breeding areas and migration routes. Stilt 14:43-48. Close , Barter 1989a Barter, M. (1989a). Bar-tailed Godwit Limosa lapponica in Australia, Pt. 2: weight, moult and breeding success. Stilt 14:49-53. Close ), and conservation (Mundkur 1993 Mundkur, T. (1993). A status overview of shorebirds in the east Asian-Australasian flyway. Kuala Lumpur: Asian Wetland Bureau. Close ; Barter et al. Barter et al. 1997a Barter, M., F. Qian, S. Tang, X. Yuan and D. Tonkinson. (1997a). Hunting of waders on Chongming Dao: a declining occupation? Stilt 31:18-22. Close , Barter et al. 1997b Barter, M., D. Tonkinson, S. X. Tang, X. Yuan and F. W. Qian. (1997b). Wader numbers on Chongming Dao, Yangtze estuary, China, during early northward migration and the conservation implications. Stilt 30:7-13. Close ). Studies of migration of other races of L. lapponica are more numerous than for L. l. baueri.