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Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica)

A small number of Bar-tailed Godwits (under 15,000 pairs) breed in the peat bogs of Lapland and adjoining Russia, but most of us know this bird only as a common passage migrant and winter visitor. At these seasons it is almost exclusively found on selected muddy estuaries, often in large numbers, where it feeds on the intertidal mud for worms and bivalve molluscs. The females are larger than the males and their bills may be up to a third longer. As a result the sexes are often segregated on an estuary, with the males foraging on the open mudflats, and the females paddling along the waterline, getting their feet wet and probing into the soft mud.

Two different populations of birds use European estuaries, and their migration strategies are subtly different. The birds from Lapland and Western Siberia spend the winter on the estuaries of Europe’s western seaboard. They leave in March and April to travel to the Low Countries and the Baltic to fatten up and moult prior to migrating to their breeding grounds. The birds from Central and Eastern Siberia winter mostly in West Africa. On their return they don’t fly direct, but use Western Europe as a stopover site, a habit that may add very considerably to their migratory journey. A single flight takes them to the same fattening sites as used by the western birds, but they arrive later than their predecessors, in early May.

Birds of the eastern population moult in Africa before departing for the spring staging posts but, intriguingly, some carry out a partial moult again as soon as they arrive, making themselves look still finer and redder. This extra moult is probably physiologically unnecessary, but it speaks volumes about their fitness. A bit of showing off may well help them find a mate sooner.