New record set for bar-tailed godwit migration between Alaska and Tasmania

It's a new record set by a young bar-tailed godwit - a migratory bird that seeks an endless summer by flying from Alaska to Australia and New Zealand every year - who arrived in Ansons Bay, in north-east Tasmania, this week.

For the endurance-marathon bird, Tasmania's east coast will now be the place to recoup after a gruelling journey that requires the godwit to shed about half its body weight.

But for biologists, it's an exciting new insight into the mysterious migratory habits of one of nature's hardiest long-distance flyers.

The Pukorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre in New Zealand has been tracking a group of godwits since their departure from Alaska on October 13.

In a Facebook post two days ago, the centre noted the 5-month old godwit - known as number 234684 - had landed in Tasmania's north-east, declaring it a new world record for the species.

"The previous long distance record of 13,050 kilometres set by the adult male 4BBRW in 2021 is blown out of the water by this young upstart," the post read.

The previous estimates biologists made about the furthest distance possible to fly without a break, around 11 to 13,000 kilometres, has now been smashed, something Bird Life Tasmania convener Dr Eric Woehler said was an exciting new discovery.

"If you're a physicist or a chemist, you know what the outcome of your experiments going to be,

"In biology, there is still that element of discovery, we still don't know everything about our world, our natural world around us," Dr Woehler said.

He said although it was common to see bar-tailed godwits in Tasmania, and Australia, at this time of year, this was the first time a direct route from Alaska to Tasmania had been recorded.

But there was every chance, Dr Woehler said, that the bird had simply made a wrong turn, ending up in Tasmania rather than New Zealand.

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"We still don't know what the migration route or the migration strategy is because the sample size is relatively small."

"But it means that we still are discovering more about the physiology, the anatomy of these birds and what they're capable of in terms of the migration."

Although it is still too early to know if the young bird's flight was an anomaly or a fascinating new piece of evidence into migratory bird behaviour, what is clear is this is only the start of the bird's round-the-world trip.

After recovering over the summer months, godwits will make their way up to south-east Asia, before flying direct to either Siberia or Alaska.

"You can imagine a round trip with all the little local movements, everything else, you're probably looking at something in the order of 25 to 30,000 kilometres in migration in a year by a single bird," Dr Woehler said.