AS anyone who has travelled to New Zealand knows it is long, long way whichever route is taken. It was all the more remarkable then, on my one trip there five years ago, to discover northern wading birds there in huge numbers at the southern end of their autumn migration.

Knots were there in hundreds but the most common were bar-tailed godwits, scattered around the estuaries of both North and South Islands. The biggest godwit concentrations were found around the Miranda Shorebird Centre where flocks numbered thousands.

I do not see godwits all that often but even to me it was obvious that many of these birds were very long-billed (pictured). In fact they are a subspecies breeding in eastern Siberia and Alaska whereas the godwits that throng our coasts, especially on passage, breed in western Siberia and the Scandinavian Arctic.

Their arrival in New Zealand is a cause for celebration with the arrival of the first flocks in South Island this September being greeted with bells rung in the nearest city and cathedral staff reading a prayer of thanks.

The fuss is justified for research at the Miranda Centre, where in recent years some godwits have been fitted with tiny radio tracking devices, has shown that these godwits travel the 7500 miles from Alaska to New Zealand directly across the Pacific in a single non-stop flight of eight to nine days at an average speed of 35 mph. This is the longest non-stop flight recorded for any land bird.

This autumn one particular radio-tracked godwit hit the headlines after it encountered strong winds over the Pacific and turned back after 33 hours and 1200 miles of its southward journey, arriving back in Alaska after 57 hours of non-stop flight. It remained there for 11 days before setting out again, this time making it for 90% of the way before putting down in New Caledonia for a five week rest before completing its journey.

On their way back north in the spring, they take a more leisurely route via Australia, the Yellow Sea and eastern Russia, arriving in Alaska in May or early June.

Their route south is increasingly affected by unpredictable winds while rising world temperatures are causing sea levels to rise, reducing their foraging grounds, and changing the breeding patterns of the invertebrates on which they rely for food.

Sadly, the population of this fantastic long-distance traveller is in decline.

wharfedale-nats.org.uk