The bar-tailed godwit (Limosa lapponica baueri), an inhabitant of New Zealand is known to have one of the longest and toughest migratory flights of any bird. The godwits leave New Zealand after summer in March and April and fly to their Alaska breeding ground.
Researchers for the first time were able to track the godwits northern route
from New Zealand to Asia and then to its breeding ground in Alaska. The godwits
were tracked flying more than 10,000km in just over a week - imagine "once they
get into the air, it’s flap-flap, and that’s all they really do," says Massey
University ecologist Dr Phil Battley. The godwits' flight is essentially
non-eating and non-drinking for a majority of the trip.
These are the champion migrants of the avian world. "When you feel them in your
hands, they're not fragile little things…They are built to travel." One godwit
appeared to have only two stopovers for the entire round trip.
We see here an example in Nature of the unstoppable drive to stay on course and
navigate through various weather systems to reach one’s destination, regardless
of the adversity, the intensity of wind or rain, cold or heat.