Bar-tailed Godwits Excellent Adventure

One of the reasons we travelled to Farewell Spit recently was to see some Bar tailed Godwits. These amazing birds travel down to New Zealand from their breeding grounds in Alaska. They spend the New Zealand summer feeding, and getting ready to head back north.

Sadly even though our trip out onto Farewell Spit was amazing, we didn't see any godwits. We did see other birds that day, and I'll show you those some other time, but I was especially keen to see the godwits. It had become a bit of a quest.

So it was a very exciting moment to see a lot of bird shapes at Taupata Stream the following day on high tide (the best time for seeing sea birds). Would these be godwits?

It was almost too much to hope for.

There were groups of different sea birds

And there they were!

hanging with some white-fronted terns

and some Pied Oystercatchers too

Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica)

Driving further around the bay we found more birds at Pakawau!

There were godwits there too!
Later we even found them at Nelson....
Which just goes to show that you need to look at what's around you

At Pakawau there was a great sign showing us how far these extraordinary birds have come.

Their journey south is the longest known non-stop flight of any bird
Which they do in an incredible 7-9 days
They have an even longer journey home, but make a stop in Asia!

The pohutakawa were beautiful that day too. 

Saturday Snapshot, is a wonderful weekly meme from at home with books