Bar-tailed Godwit

Irish Name: Guilbneach stríocearrach
Scientific name: Limosa lapponica
Bird Family: Waders
red
Conservation status

Status

Winter visitor to coastal estuaries from October to April from Russia and Scandinavia.

Identification

At first glance resembles a smaller version of a Curlew - similar shape (long legs and neck) and plumage (grey/brown with streaking). The long, straight and slightly upturned bill, however is quite different. Summer plumaged birds occur sometimes, showing varying amounts of orange/brick red on the body feathers. Bar-tailed can easily be confused with the slightly longer-legged and more elegant Black-tailed Godwit, however in flight, Bar-tailed always shows fairly uniform, grey brown upperwings, a long white rump and a finely barred tail (Black-tailed is strongly patterned with black and white wings and tail and a square white rump). Usually seen feeding along outer shoreline of estuaries. Sometimes in large flocks.

Voice

Harsh/nasal two note 'cewee-cewee'

Diet

Feed along the tidal edge, or in shallow water (up to 15 cm depth). They usually commence feeding on an ebbing tide, and feed continuously for up to 6 hours. Polychaete worms, particularly lugworms, form a large proportion of their diet. On the muddier estuaries, where lugworms may be absent, they take ragworms and bivalves.

Breeding

Breeds in northern Norway, Finland and further to the north and east.

Wintering

Wintering distribution entirely coastal. They are largely confined to estuaries, with largest numbers recorded on sandy estuaries. Small numbers recorded using non-estuarine coastline.

Blog posts about this bird

I-WeBS

Record attendance at I-WeBS workshops highlights public appetite to support biodiversity

The high attendance at two recent introductory Irish Wetland Bird Survey (I-WeBS) workshops in Galway highlighted an increasing public desire to learn about and support biodiversity. Organised by BirdWatch Ireland in collaboration with Galway County Council and Galway City Council with the support of the NPWS, the workshops were aimed at showing birdwatchers how they can help monitor wintering waterbird populations at Inner Galway Bay and in turn, inform their conservation. Additionally, BirdWatch Ireland also hoped to recruit new skilled I-WeBS observers to survey this important site during the 2023/ 24 season. Over 120 people attended the workshops across the two days. The training days, which involved a combination of informative talks about the I-WeBS survey followed by an outdoor field method demonstration, were held on the 23rd September at Knocknacarra Community Centre and the 6th of October the Marine Institute. Within the talks, attendees found out about why it is so important to survey our wintering waterbirds as well as some hot tips for identifying and counting waterbirds. To pick up some tips and tricks for identifying waterbirds, take a look at the I-WeBS training tools.

Workshop participants getting a glimpse of some interesting waterbirds at Rinville.

The outdoor portion of the events – which took place at Rusheen Bay and Rinville – proved fruitful, offering views of waterbirds such as Lapwing, Curlew, Turnstone and Sandwich Terns, to name but a few. Although not a waterbird, the sight of a beautiful female Wheatear hopping along the nearby rocks was a delightful bonus. Attendees brought with them a wealth of relevant experiences, skills and interests, with a high number of local university students and ecological consultants particular taking part. The interactive and informative workshops have thus far resulted in the recruitment of 30 new I-WeBS volunteers for Inner Galway Bay, with many more attendees choosing to sign up to survey at other sites. Meanwhile, the events inspired many more to get involved with their local Galway Branch of BirdWatch Ireland. In addition to boosting survey volunteer numbers, the recent events also offered a fantastic platform to spread the word about I-WeBS – a National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) funded monitoring project that has been running since 1994. Every year between September and March, close to 500 I-WeBS volunteers record wintering waterbirds at important wetland sites around the country. Irish wetlands are extremely important for the survival of these birds and I-WeBS keeps track of how these birds are faring so that informed conservation action can be taken.

Participants working together to identify birds at Rinville.

The recent I-WeBS workshops focused predominantly on Inner Galway Bay – an internationally important site for wintering waterbirds, hosting over 20,000 birds every season.  Inner Galway Bay is a site of international importance for the Great Northern Diver and Light-bellied Brent Goose, meaning that it regularly supports one per cent or more of the flyway population of these species. It is also a site of national importance for many birds, including Red-listed species such as Shoveler, Grey Plover, Dunlin, Redshank, Black-tailed Godwit, Bar-tailed Godwit and Lapwing. In all, the workshops proved to be a great success, in large part due to the strong collaboration between BirdWatch Ireland, BirdWatch Ireland’s Galway Branch, Galway County Council, Galway City Council, the Marine Institute and Knocknacarra Community Centre. BirdWatch Ireland is particularly grateful to Galway County Council and Galway City Council for funding binoculars and telescopes, which will be available for survey volunteers to rent from Galway City Library.  
Colour ringing

Starting 2020 with a (literal) BANG!! Catching and colour-ringing waders in Dublin Bay

In January 2020, the Dublin Bay Birds Project Team put in a huge effort to fit colour-rings (safely, and under license) to the legs of a portion of the wintering waders in Dublin Bay. Over four days and nights, we caught and ringed 235 waders of 6 species, with 23 ‘re-trapped’ birds, two of which were Icelandic-ringed Oystercatchers! The precise tally is 199 Oystercatchers, 23 Black-tailed Godwits, 5 Redshank, 4 Dunlin, 3 Curlew, and 1 Knot.

We used a highly specialised technique called ‘cannon-netting’ (firing a large net outwards using weighted projectiles propelled from cannons) to capture the birds. To do this, we once again drafted in the skills of licensed cannon-netters from the Highland and Grampian Ringing Groups in Scotland.  The catching effort involved pre-dawn starts, night-time mist-netting, hole-digging, hiding in saltmarsh and marram grass, tide-watching, precision placement of cannons and nets, lots of waiting and hoping, and running at speed to the net when it fired over a flock of birds!

Once the birds are captured and safely removed from the net they are kept calm until they are ‘processed’. This means swiftly and carefully recording some biometric measurements, like wing length, bill length, and assessing the birds age from plumage characteristics, and each bird is fitted with colour-rings. The DBBP uses a combination of carefully planned colours on each bird,  including one ring that is inscribed with a unique, two-digit alphanumeric code (see photo of colour-ringed Oystercatcher).

The colour-ring schemes for all waders are registered with a strictly controlled system co-ordinated by the International Wader Study Group.  This ensures that every scheme is unique and that no two birds of the same species could ever be fitted with the same combination of rings anywhere across its flyway. This allows every bird to be individually identifiable making the resultant data exceptionally useful.

Essentially, the fitting of colour-rings to the legs of these wintering waders in Dublin and the subsequent reading and reporting of them (and similarly the fitting of small GPS-devices to birds) is all about trying to understand where they go for roosting and foraging at a local level, and about their migratory and breeding movements at international, flyway level. In this case, the colour-ring observations provide information about what areas of Dublin Bay the waders use during different tidal states and if they appear to be particularly reliant or show fidelity to certain areas, all helping to identify and thus conserve important areas. Colour-ringing can also generate valuable information about the timing of migratory arrivals and departures, and confirm migratory links between Ireland and breeding grounds elsewhere. The map with green red and yellow dots shows the locations of international resightings of waders colour-ringed in Dublin. Colour-ringing work is something that the Dublin Bay Birds Project, supported by Dublin Port Company, has been carrying out over the last few years (see other escapades here! dublinbaybirds.blogspot.com) with constant management of a database now containing in excess of 4,500 ‘resightings’ (observations) of individually colour-marked birds at various locations, yielding some fascinating information, see HERE for an example.

Bolstering this, detailed data was generated in 2016 when we fitted a selection of waders (Redshank, Curlew and Oystercatcher) with small GPS tracking devices (in addition to colour-rings) that provided un-biased daily data about the location of the individual birds, across entire tidal cycles, both day and night. The map shows the downloaded tracks (red dots) of a Curlew in the winter of 2016/17 at Bull Island and the Tolka Estuary. This GPS-tracking work was co-funded by SEAI and Dublin Port Company.

In addition to the valuable data generated by marking and tracking birds, valuable connections and collaborations with scientists and ring-readers across the flyways of these waders are created. Our January activities have crossover with several international projects. This summer, we expect that some of our marked Oystercatchers will be observed in Iceland by the Icelandic Oystercatcher Team (University of East Anglia, South Iceland Research Centre, University of Iceland), in the same way that we see Icelandic-ringed birds in Dublin Bay.  This nice blog 'Wader Tales' by Graham Appleton summarises some of the Icelandic work and its connections with Ireland. And one of the Dublin-ringed Oystercatchers ‘XN’ has already been seen on its breeding ground in Scotland  (5TH February 2020) by our valuable observer John Bowler of the RSPB … the fourth year in a row! Ongoing international projects on Black-tailed Godwits and Knot allowed us to borrow and deploy their colour schemes on the 23 Black-tailed Godwit and single Knot that we caught in January, with thanks to Pete Potts (UK) and Jim Wilson (Norway), respectively for allowing us to use those. We hope the resightings to come from these birds across the flyway will enhance on-going work for these researchers. The January 2020 cannon-netting was a massive effort by a brilliant team (just some of which is pictured below). In particular, thanks to our super-skilled cannon-netters, Ewan Weston and Kenny Graham, for parachuting in for the few days to put their skills and gear to great use, and to Kendrew Colhoun for key logistical support and assistance with licensing and equipment.  There was also a huge effort from dawn ‘til dusk by an outstanding and enthusiastic team of volunteers, licensed ringers, NPWS and BirdWatch Ireland to get it all done. It was a great, and really quite rare, opportunity for the team to get to see several species of wader up so close.

Now the work is to go out and look for all of these colour-ringed birds, read those inscriptions and submit them to us!

Submit your resightings HERE!

The Dublin Bay Birds Project is very lucky to be supported by Dublin Port Company who keenly recognise the value of this work and the data it generates.

This work was carried out under license from the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the British Trust for Ornithology.

Similar Species

Black-tailed Godwit

Irish Name:
Guilbneach earrdhubh
Scientific name:
Limosa limosa
Bird Family:
Waders