Godwit Musings

Most birders like Godwits, and the current appearence of a Hudsonian Godwit has brightened up a summer for those in the south-east. The species has an amazing pattern of vagrancy, and I have an interesting personal history with them. It began in 1981;  I had started birding in 1980, but hadn't done any twitching. On holiday in Devon we saw a crowd of birders with telescopes trained on something, but as it wasn't a birding trip and we were with friends we didn't investigate. A few years, and integration in to the twitching fraternity, made me realise that I had driven past a Hudsonian Godwit, the long-staying (and returning bird) which was the UK's only record at the time, and was also recorded at Blacktoft Sands. Of course, that species (for me anyway), immediately joined the "most wanted" list. It was to be a long wait. I've never worried too much about my British list, although I did a lot of twitching I travelled a lot as I had a good job. So I saw my first Hudwits in Chile in 1990, I remember because there was a vicar on our private tour, and he was highly amused by the name. The name has, of course, nothing to do with any god, it is a corruption of old English meaning "good thing", although some think it refers to the call. Of course, US authorities didn't take that in to consideration when refusing a personal number plate GODWIT, which a group of friends were trying to present to a colleague. Strange, they allowed PHUQUE, for a couple of years until someone pointed out that it wasn't an old Navajo word, and that PH is pronounced "F".

I digress, once I have seen a species, my next thing is to photograph it, the birds in Chile had been distant, and impossible with a film camera. A bird in 1988 did nothing for anyone hoping for the species in the UK, as it was an isolated sighting in Aberdeen, and was gone before anyone knew about it. The description left no doubt, and it was readily accepted. So my next encounter was in 1997, on the other side of the world, New Zealand. A widespread vagrant, as I said, it turns out that the species is recorded there fairly regularly, and birds return, like the 1981 UK bird. Still unable to photograph the bird, which was in a large flock of Godwits (mainly Eastern Bar-tailed). I did eventually get a shot of a New Zealand bird in 2007 before starting the inaugural Western Pacific Odyssey with Wildwings. There are records from all over the world, South Africa, Namibia, Australia, Hawaii, Japan, Sweden, Portugal and Cabo Verde, but the majority of birds breed around Hudson Bay and migrate south, wintering in southern South America. Like most Godwits, they wander, vagrants usually attach themselves loosely to flocks of other species, indeed the bird in Suffolk had been in Portugal recently. My first good photo was a bird in Argentina, found when looking for Olrog's Gull in 2005, part of a small wintering flock.


 Of course, the species' near-mythical status for British Birders finally came to an end when a bird was found in Somerset in 2015. It was seen in several locations around Ham Wall RSPB and Meare Heath, frequently moving with the Godwit flock. First seen on 23rd April, I couldn't go to see it! It was "available" for a few days and then seemed to disappear. Almost everyone I knew had seen it, but I hadn't. Then it re-appeared in early May, I drove overnight to Somerset (something I hadn't done for years), and managed to get some half-decent photos. The day I saw it was the last day it was reported, but amazingly a different bird turned up in Ireland later that year. Records are now becoming somewhat more regular, although the species itself is in decline. I thought I might see another, on Shetland in 2023, but it departed a couple of days before my annual pilgrimage. 

There are just four Godwits, although the Eastern race of Bar-tailed, baueri, has been suggested as a split. Marbled is a much shorter distance migrant than the others, confined to North and Central America. It is unlikely to occur in the UK. Plumages are quite variable, since most birds don't seem to keep their full breeding dress long, and winter plumages are sombre, to say the least. I always look for a Hudwit when I visit Frampton, as the large numbers there at times seem bound to attract one eventually, but the rarest I have seen there was a leucistic Black-tailed.

 

#Godwit #aabirdpix.com #bird images #Alan Tate #Hudsonian Godwit 

 

 

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