A young bird flew for eleven days and eleven nights, without drinking or eating, to reach western Alaska (United States) in Tasmania (Australia).
Throughout these 13,560 km, this red godwit born in 2022 neither drank nor ate.
She also did not land once, thus setting the record for the longest direct flight for a bird, Franceinfo said on Friday.
His performance has also been formalized by the Guinness Book of Records.
New direct flight record without setting foot for an Alaskan Godwit tracked by GPS: 13560 km to Tasmania last October!
That is an average of 50 km/h traveled in one go in 11 days and 11 nights (and 1 hour), without eating or drinking!
pic.twitter.com/Ev4ksfLCbL
— Maxime Zucca (@MaximeZucca) January 25, 2023
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If she is not the only one to have taken this route to reach Australia, "234684", her identifier, is the only red godwit to have covered the distance without feeding.
The bird progressed at an average speed of 50 km/h.
This remarkable feat is actually necessary for the animal's survival, explained ornithologist Maxime Zucca.
Indeed, on the course, “there is no place to rebuild fat reserves, even if there are a few atolls”.
This long pause flight also allows the animal to limit the risk of disease.
A fast to prepare for your flight
To achieve such a feat, the red godwits of Alaska prepare themselves upstream.
From mid-August, they head for the Yukon delta to find enough food to increase their weight by 50%.
Once this objective is achieved, they perform a fast in order to atrophy the organs related to food, which are not necessary for flight.
During its flight carried out between 3,000 and 5,000 m altitude depending on the winds, the bird opts for a unihemispherical sleep.
This concerns only one half of the brain and allows the other to function.
This migration is however made more complex by human activities.
Global warming is indeed causing an upheaval in the places where red godwits live.
The phenomenon pushes the animals to migrate much earlier in order to be able to feed their young with cousin-type Diptera.
Faced with such a situation, birds find it increasingly difficult to fatten up properly, leading to higher mortality during long migrations.
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