How can a bird fly for eleven days without landing?
A juvenile godwit tagged 'B6' left Alaska in October 2022 and landed in Tasmania 11 days later, without one stop to eat or rest on the ground.
▶ Start the storyA bar-tailed godwit can fly for more than a week without landing because it turns itself into a flying fuel tank. The Alaska-to-New Zealand migration of this bird's subspecies is the longest known non-stop flight of any bird, and the longest journey without pausing to feed by any animal.
The fuel is fat. Before it leaves, 55 percent of a godwit's body weight is stored as fat, far above the 35 to 40 percent of a typical shorebird. To carry that load, godwits reduce the size of their digestive organs.
The details come from tags. In 2007 a female flagged E7 flew eight days non-stop from Alaska to New Zealand, a record 11,680 km at the time. In 2021 a male called 4BBRW flew 13,000 km non-stop from Alaska to New South Wales. And in October 2022 a juvenile flagged B6 flew from Alaska to Tasmania, at least 13,560 km in 11 days and one hour.
13,560 km
B6 was a juvenile, and the first tagged bird known to fly that route to Tasmania.
Weather helps. Godwits often leave New Zealand early when the winds are favourable, and they seem able to predict the weather patterns that will help them along the route. The whole round trip is over 29,000 km.
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Recap
Godwits survive their record flights by becoming more than half fat and by leaving when the winds are good.
💡 A trick to remember it · A godwit packs its lunch into its body: over half fat, gut shrunk to a pocket, and the wind as its tailwind.
Surprising fact · A juvenile godwit flew at least 13,560 km non-stop from Alaska to Tasmania in 11 days.
Sources (2)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (14 claims) cites at least one of these.