Twitching a mega rare Hudsonian Godwit at Burton Mere RSPB and thoughts on the evolution of Godwit migration

    

Hudsonian Godwit

I was planning to visit Rachel, my lovely middle daughter, and her family in Sale on Tuesday but she unfortunately had a bad migraine so we rearranged the visit for later in the week.

 

Suddenly, presented with a free day, I checked RBA and, with nothing rare to temp me, thought about some local birding. C and I were drinking coffee around 10:00 and I was bemoaning the lack of rarities this year compared to last when a report of a mega rare Hudsonian Godwit at Burton Mere RSPB reserve in Cheshire hit the headlines. Needing this for my UK list, rapid apologies and packing the car followed and off I went in the usual twitcher mixed state of excitement and apprehension. It should have been a 2 hour journey but the M6 was at its horrific worst and I didn’t arrive until just before 1pm. The bird had been continuously reported in a large flock of Godwits viewed from the Border hide some 30 minutes’ walk from the visitors centre.  What followed was the usual progression of anxious twitchers rushing to see the bird meeting happy twitchers walking leisurely back from ticking the bird.

 

The hide was quite busy but large enough to accommodate everyone who wanted to get in. A very large flock of Godwits were either feeding or snoozing on the lagoon but a kind birder let me have a look through his scope and there was my 416^th UK tick. After a short while a space became available on one of the benches and I settled in to scope and hopefully photograph our lost American. Once I got my eye in it was fairly easy to pick up in amongst the other birds. It was slightly smaller with a  pronounced upper curved bill. It was moulting out of summer plumage but was noticeably darker on the back than the other common Godwits. The underwing pattern is definitive with a back shoulder. I didn’t manage to get a picture of the bird with its wings raised but other pictures of the bird clearly showed this diagnostic feature.

In amongst its European Cousins the smaller size, finer up curved bill and darker back plumage stand out

Waking up for a few moments for a good old scratch!

It spent the hour or so I was in the hide mainly sleeping with its head tucked in but it occasionally lifted its head when disturbed or to preen, much to the excitement of the birders in the hide .. “Its got its head up!!!”

 

There are four species of Godwits, long-billed, long-legged waders that breed in the Northern Hemisphere.  

 

Hudsonian Godwit breeds in Canada, Alaska and the Hudson bay migrating to South America and the Caribbean for the winter. It is an extremely rare vagrant to Europe with just 4 accepted UK records to the end of 2022.

 

The Marbled Godwit breeds in North America and winters in Mexico and the Caribbean. It has never been recorded in the UK.

 

Black Tailed Godwits have a large breeding range from Iceland to the far east of Russia. Birds from the Icelandic population winter mainly in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and the Netherlands, though some fly on to Spain, Portugal and perhaps Morocco. Birds of the limosa subspecies from western Europe fly south to Morocco and then on to Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. Birds from the eastern European populations migrate to Tunisia and Algeria, then on to Mali or Chad. Asian birds winter in Australia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea.

 

Bar-tailed Godwits breed in the Artic. Those nesting in Alaska undertake the longest non-stop migration of any bird to Australia and New Zealand. To achieve this they carry the largest fat store of any migratory bird that has been examined, reducing the size of their internal organs to make space for it. Satellite tracking has given us a detailed view of this incredible journey. One bird flew non-stop for 8 days covering a distance of 7,258 miles! This made me ponder how on earth these birds could have evolved this trait. 

 

Evolution occurs as either a slow continuous process or a step change produced by a major genetic mutation. Clearly the Godwits epic migration must fall into the latter category as you can’t slowly increase how far you migrate as a land living bird over the ocean. One can only speculate that at some point in their evolution a number of birds were blown off course and somehow survived to make it to New Zealand or Australia. This must have produced some major evolutionary advantage for this to become the dominant trait in these birds. I can only think that the availability of copious food at the new wintering sites somehow balanced out the need to fatten up so extremely to enable the journey. Evolution is truly an amazing thing!

 

After an hour or so I decided to make space for other eager birders who were arriving. I realised that I was only 40 minutes from Rachel’s house so called her to see if she felt better. I arranged to meet her and my gorgeous grandson, George, in the park and found George enjoying the swings. Dinner at Rach’s finished off a truly memorable day!

   

You are never to young to learn Astro-Physics in my humble opinion!

 

  Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!