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Black-tailed Godwits (1 Viewer)

S

Steve Lister

Senior Birder, ex County Recorder, Garden Moths.
United Kingdom
At Rutland Water (central England) we have been seeing unusual numbers of Black-tailed Godwits since the end of June, with up to 81 a day but mainly lower numbers - 46 on Tuesday and 7 yesterday for example.
Both Icelandic and continental birds have been identified but most are just recorded as Black-tailed Godwits.
Has anyone else been seeing unusual numbers, and has anyone got any theories why?

Steve
 
Hi Steve,

May and June were very dry in Iceland (visitors in July would have trouble believing this as it has been a miserably wet July apart from present week) and this is thought to have discouraged a lot of B-tG from breeding. Some may have left early although there has been some good success reported later in the season, many just delayed breeding by a couple of weeks. This could be one reason.

ID is easy Tom. If I see them here they're Icelandic. tee-hee.

E
 
Since I've been birding (last year and this) there have been very large numbers at Oare marshes in north Kent at this time of year. I remember at one time late summer last year, there were at least 600 birds. I don't know what the build up is this year, but there were a good few when we popped in a few weeks ago.
 
florall said:
Since I've been birding (last year and this) there have been very large numbers at Oare marshes in north Kent at this time of year. I remember at one time late summer last year, there were at least 600 birds. I don't know what the build up is this year, but there were a good few when we popped in a few weeks ago.
Click to expand...
At the moment there are about 800 at Oare (see http://www.kentos.org.uk/Oare/July05.htm). At times last year there were well over a thousand. Quite a spectacular sight.
 
tom mckinney said:
Hi Steve,

How easy/hard are icelandic and continental to ID and how do you do it?

Tom
Click to expand...

If you get them standing out of the water it is fairly easy if you look carefully at birds but when they are feeding, especially in deep water, it is difficult.
Structurally islandica have shorter bills and legs (but I expect there is some male/female difference in bill length too). In breeding plumage the head/breast colour of islandica is darker and more bricky compared to the orangey tones on limosa, and the colour extends further down the underparts on islandica. Juvenile islandica is much more richly coloured than limosa. There are also differences in the patterning of the upperparts but this is , in my opinion, less useful especially at anything but close range.

There was a well-illustrated feature on the subject on the UK400 website last year but I do not have access to it to check if it is still there.

Hope this helps Tom. Where you are I would suspect that limosa would be very unusual.

Steve
 
There is a flyway between the Irish Sea and the North Sea estuaries, used by Icelandic birds, so there's plenty of reason why thet're passing that way. As for why they're settling, maybe they've just found a good source of food. Rutland isn't a million miles from the coast, so it could be that they're transient.

See if any are colour-ringed, then get in touch with the people at UEA, and they'll tell you where they're from. I had a bird on the Humber around this time last year. The week before it had been in Ireland, so they can get about a bit.
 
Interesting. I only counted 20 on the Eden yesterday (where essentially all we get is islandica). We had a record spring (Scottish record count of 811 in April) and the cold weather meant birds lingered into June (over 40 at times when usually none). Returning birds have been around for a couple of weeks but 20 is the highest count so far.

Rob
 
Offord said:
See if any are colour-ringed, then get in touch with the people at UEA, and they'll tell you where they're from. I had a bird on the Humber around this time last year. The week before it had been in Ireland, so they can get about a bit.
Click to expand...

There were two colour-ringed birds in the flock of 81 at the end of June but I was not there to see them. Hopefully somebody took the details and reported them. We usually get a few c-r islandica at Rutland each year, mainly birds caught on The Wash, which is quite close.

My query was prompted by the unusual numbers for this time of year, not the fact that birds are turning up at Rutland. It still seems odd to me that so many are being seen , and Edward's comment about the dry early summer in Iceland putting some of the breeding birds off seems to tie in as a possible explanation.

Steve
 
A few birds usually summer on the Orwell but there do seem to be surprisingly large numbers at the moment. 50+ three weeks ago, ca. 600 on 22/07. Probably more at Trimley Marsh but I haven't been to see.

Mark
 
There was a very high count at Oare at the beginning of the week – about 1350 birds. Site record, I think. Only about 500 over the high tide yesterday afternoon.

Sean
 
Last edited:
Steve,

I think Rutland has stolen most of Derbyshires passing godwits then, as so far it has been very quiet, just odd birds passing at the moment, though may have missed a few as they do not tend to hang around too long on our pits. Looks like I'll have to keep my eye out a bit more!

James
 
Hi Amarillo,

So few breed due to their habitat requirements. Limosa Black-tailed Godwits require low lying pasture, similar to Ruff, their typical habitat is the stereotypical habitat you think of being found in Holland, a few pairs breed in Cambridgeshire/Norfolk (or that general area!), where Bewick's & Whooper Swans and wild geese winter, this habitat is very similar to that found on mainland Europe.

Islandica are like most tundra breeding shorebirds, requiring the habitat found only in the tundra zone, such as Iceland, though they have been known to breed in Shetland. Certinaly a specialist in habitat requirements when it comes to breeding, far less so during migration.

All the best

James
 
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