Bar-tailed Godwit

Bar-tailed Godwit

Limosa lapponica

Aguja Colibarrada, Aguja Colipinta

Photo: R. Sullivan

A large brown shorebird with fine barring on the tail. The bill curves upward. Length: 37-41 cm.; weight: 190-630 g. Nests on the tundra in western Alaska and in northern Scandinavia and Russia. This species normally migrates 11,000 kilometers across the Pacific Ocean to its winter grounds in the South Pacific. To prepare for its long-distance migration from the Arctic, the Bar-tailed Godwit stores enough fat so that 55% of its body weight is fat just as it departs Alaska in the autumn. This is a much higher proportion of body weight than in other long-distance migrants. By the time it starts its migration, the gizzard, liver, and other organs have shrunk to half their summertime size, presumably to save weight on the long flight south. Accidental in the Virgin Islands, but not yet documented for Puerto Rico.

TAXONOMY: CHARADRIIFORMES; SCOLOPACIDAE; Scolopacinae

With Marbled Godwits - Photo: R. Sullivan

With Marbled Godwits - Photo: R. Sullivan

With a Marbled Godwit - Photo: R. Sullivan

Photo: R. Sullivan

With Marbled Godwits - Photo: R. Sullivan

References

Bent, A.C. 1927. Life histories of North American shore birds, part 1. Smithsonian Instit. U.S. National Museum Bull. 142. (Reprinted by Dover Press, NY, 1962).

del Hoyo, J., A. Elliott, and J. Sargatal, eds. 1996. Handbook of Birds of the World, Vol. 3. Hoatzin to Auks. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

Ehrlich, P.R., D.S. Dobkin, and D. Wheye. 1988. The birder’s handbook: a field guide to the natural history of North American birds. Simon and Schuster/Fireside, NY.

Hayman, P., J. Marchant, and T. Prater. 1986. Shorebirds: an identification guide. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.

McCaffery, B. J. 1998. Implications of frequent habitat switches in foraging Bar-tailed Godwits. Auk 115:494-497.

McCaffery, B. J. and R. Gill. 2001. Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica). No. 581 in The birds of North America (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

Paulson, D. 1993. Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest. Univ Washington, Seattle.

Piersma, T. and J. Jukema. 1993. Red-breasts as honest signals of migratory quality in a long-distance migrant, the Bar-tailed Godwit. Condor 95:163-177.

Piersma, T. and R. E. Gill. 1998. Guts don’t fly: small digestive organs in obese Bar-tailed Godwits. The Auk 115(1):196-203.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. A guide to the birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Princeton.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. Una guía a las aves de Puerto Rico y las Islas Vírgenes. Publishing Resources, Inc., Santurce, PR.

Raffaele, H.A., J.W. Wiley, O.H. Garrido, A.R. Keith, and J.I. Raffaele. 1998. Guide to the birds of the West Indies. Princeton.

Bar-tailed Godwit, Spanish text

Back to Species Selection Page Menu

Return to first page of the CD-ROM