Swimming Bar-tailed Godwit?!?!
 

Hi everybody,
I need some help with a bird I saw today. Unfortunately I didnn't manage to take a pic.... as usual when you really would need one.
It was definitely a wader, with a pretty long beak (not as long as a common snipe's but longer than a greenshank's beak), which was slightly upwards curved. The breast looked a little reddish, and also the size argued for a bar-tailed godwit. Which I have never seen before, only in my books, you understand...
Suddenly the bird started swimming! That really threw me off. I thought waders (except for phalaropes) didn-t swim? Can someone help me, I can't find any information about swimming godwits... and possibly I overlooked another species?!

/Claudia :h?:

A lot of waders swim. Avocets do it a lot and I've also seen Redshank, Dunlin and Lapwing swim decent distances in deep water.

Stephen

Spotted Redshank seem to swim a fair bit as well...

Even lapwings? Funny, I never saw a wader swimming before, but then again I am quite new to the wader-watching business.
Thanks for the answers!

spotted redshank swim a lot - and have a long beak (but not up curved). juvs can look brownish. can't remember seeing godwits swimming but won't exclude it. i saw greenshank, marsh sand and ruff swimming though.

Saw bartailed godwit swim for a short distance...so it is possible.

Ruff are really good swimmers and also do a fair impression of spinning phalaropes when distant.

John.

How deep was the water?

Godwits have long legs, and I have seen them 'Wading' through Water, which makes them look they are swimming.

Wally

It is a bit hard to say, how deep the water was (it's constantly being pumped out to lay open wader-friendly beaches, and the rain fills it up at a more or less equal rate, haha), could actually have been sufficiently shallow for the bird to wade after all. But it really didn't look like wading, especially because the bird moved quicker in deeper water, which you wouldn't expect, would you? Water resistance should slow it down rather if it was wading instead of swimming. At least that's my (naive?) perception of things.

/Claudia :h?:

Hmm, good point.

But (would) wading would take less energy than swimming (?), so the bird MAY be able to move faster when wading, if it uses the same technique, as in closing it's toes together when moving it's leg through the water, etc etc.

Thinking about it, the Godwits I had assumed had been wading may well have been swimming, and just carried on out of the water, which made them look like they had waded across the water rather than swam (if that makes sense)

Wally

Now I know for sure, the godwit must have been swimming! I saw a grey heron at the exact same spot and the water came up to its body, so I guess a wader trying to wade would have disappeared under the water surface.

Thanks for all the answers, very reassuring!
/Claudia