Bar-Tailed Godwits

Bar-Tailed Godwits, Limosa lapponica, are known as Barwits by birders. It’s a great contraction of their name. There are a couple off the south coast of Westray when we are walking there. One flies as we round a corner.

They have sensitive, slightly upturned bills.

Their disruptive camouflage is a joy against the seaweed-strewn rocky shore.

I can see this one’s feet protruding beyond the tail feathers. It has long legs as well as a long bill. They must like wading in deeper water or feeding in deeper mud.

They breed in the Arctic in Scandinavia and Siberia and pass through Britain in their hundreds of thousands. The only month we don’t see them is June.

Here’s its famous barred tail:

The Bar-Tailed Godwits which nest in Alaska fly non-stop to Australia and New Zealand, building up massive fat reserves and shrinking their organs to achieve it. Some which nest in the Arctic only make it as far as the North Sea.

My migration is Orkney to Devon. It seems enough.