Friday, 13 February, 2015

Ceremony says farewell to the Godwits

GO2WRYB - it's not much of a name, but this Godwit is one of thousands to be farewelled from Christchurch shores on 19 February.

Having spent the summer in Christchurch, the Godwits (Kuaka) are getting ready for their flight of more than 11,000 km via the Yellow Sea in eastern Asia to Alaska. It is the longest known journey of any bird.

The unique ceremony to farewell the Godwits is a Christchurch City Council SummerTimes event. It starts at 5pm on 19 February at Southshore Spit Reserve at the end of Rocking Horse Road.

Little GO2WRYB, a male Godwit identified by the bands on his legs, was photographed at Brooklands Lagoon, 14 km northeast of Christchurch, on 2 February 2015.

He was banded on 2 April 2012 at Yalu Jiang, a Godwit migration staging site on the China/North Korean border in the Yellow Sea, as part of PhD study by "Jimmy" Mo Choi.

He was seen on several dates between 7 and 22 October 2012 at Stockton Sandspit, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, and probably crossed the Tasman Sea to New Zealand.

"This is a round-about migration route that juvenile Godwits are known to take," Christchurch City Council Ranger Andrew Crossland says.

GO2WRYB was seen later the same season at Brooklands Lagoon on 17 January 2013.

The photo taken earlier this month was at the tip of Brooklands sand spit, beside the Waimakariri River mouth where GO2WRYB was roosting with a flock of 72 Godwits.

About 130 Godwits migrate to Brooklands each year, but a bigger flock of more than 2000 birds migrate to the Avon-Heathcote estuary so the farewell is held there.

If you plan to attend the farewell to the Godwits, keep in mind that the track to the Southshore Spit Reserve is rough and it takes about 10 or 15 minutes to reach the viewing site.

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