New record for non-stop flight of a bird: from Alaska to Tasmania

Oct. 28 () –

This year’s flight by a Bar-tailed Godwit has been documented as the longest bird flight on record, traveling 13,560 kilometers from Alaska to the island of Tasmania, in Australia.

That distance is 2,000 kilometers longer than the epic journey of another specimen of the same species, called E7, which in 2007 covered a journey of more than 11,500 kilometers from Alaska to New Zealand in 11 days. It was a world record, with the information available through a small satellite transmitter attached to the bird’s back, reports Birdlife Australia in a statement.

The new non-stop record flight was completed as well in just 11 days. In fact, according to information recorded on the transmitter it was carrying, this bird had ample opportunity to stop for food and rest on various tropical islands as it flew across the Pacific Ocean, but chose to keep flapping.

Like most migratory shorebirds in Australia, Bar-tailed Godwits migrate annually between their breeding areas in the northern hemispherewhich are generally found in the Siberian or Alaskan tundra, to their non-breeding areas in Australia and New Zealand.

It has been stated that the total cumulative lifetime distance flown by a Bar-tailed Godwit on its annual migration between Australasia and the Northern Hemisphere it would be equivalent to flying to the Moon and back.