Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa)

Both the Godwit species are large waders with more or less straight bills. They are built for proper wading, having long legs, and also partly webbed feet to enable them to walk on soft mud without sinking. They are at home in the water and often wade in up to their bellies; characteristically they immerse the whole of their head and neck below the surface of the water as they feed. A foraging Godwit tends to walk slowly forward, leaning down to make shallow, exploratory probes; then, without warning it switches to much deeper, more jabbing probes and triumphantly pull out a worm or similar large morsel.

The Black-tailed Godwit inhabits gentler climates than the Bar-tailed. It is not a tundra bird, but instead thrives in damp meadows, poorly drained fields and wet moorland within our continental and temperate zones. It is one of the few waders that has increased in Europe in recent times, having been able to take advantage of the spread of farmland and fields under cultivation. In winter, in contrast to the marine Bar-tailed Godwit, it tends to favour freshwater meadows inland. But the Icelandic race is unusual in this respect; these birds do indeed winter on intertidal mudflats, mixing with their Bar-tailed equivalents.

In spring Black-tailed Godwits perform an impressive array of noisy display-flights, made all the more eye-catching by the birds’ highly contrasting black-and-white wing pattern. The Ceremonial Flight, carried out by males advertising their availability, consists of a preliminary rapid rise with fast wing-beats, a tumble, a strange flight with the wing-beats alternated and taking the bird in an erratic course (“limping-flight”), and then a nose-dive towards the ground. All these manoeuvres may take place above occupied territories, but at this stage Black-tailed Godwits consider the air-space above them to be neutral and communal.