Migratory Shorebirds
36 species of migratory shorebird fly annually to Australia and New Zealand for their non-breeding, or overwintering, season, and breed in the northern hemisphere above the Arctic Circle. The route they take between their breeding and non-breeding grounds twice annually is called the East-Asian Australasian Flyway. For some species this circular rote can take them on an annual journey of up to 25,000 km. During their lifetime, many birds that have undertaken this epic round-trip ever year of their adult lives, will have flown more miles than from the earth to the moon, and back.
These species are:
Pacific Golden Plover
Grey Plover
Little Ringed Plover
Lesser Sand Plover
Greater Sand Plover
Oriental Plover
Latham’s Snipe
Pin-tailed Snipe
Swinhoe’s Snipe
Black-tailed Godwit
Bar-tailed Godwit
Little Curlew
Whimbrel
Eastern Curlew
Terek Sandpiper
Common Sandpiper
Grey-tailed Tattler
Wandering Tattler
Common Greenshank
Marsh Sandpiper
Common Redshank
Wood Sandpiper
Ruddy Turnstone
Asian Dowitcher
Great Knot
Red Knot
Sanderling
Red-necked Stint
Long-toed Stint
Pectoral Sandpiper
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
Curlew Sandpiper
Broad-billed Sandpiper
Ruff
Red-necked Phalarope
Oriental Pratincole
These species are:
Pacific Golden Plover
Grey Plover
Little Ringed Plover
Lesser Sand Plover
Greater Sand Plover
Oriental Plover
Latham’s Snipe
Pin-tailed Snipe
Swinhoe’s Snipe
Black-tailed Godwit
Bar-tailed Godwit
Little Curlew
Whimbrel
Eastern Curlew
Terek Sandpiper
Common Sandpiper
Grey-tailed Tattler
Wandering Tattler
Common Greenshank
Marsh Sandpiper
Common Redshank
Wood Sandpiper
Ruddy Turnstone
Asian Dowitcher
Great Knot
Red Knot
Sanderling
Red-necked Stint
Long-toed Stint
Pectoral Sandpiper
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
Curlew Sandpiper
Broad-billed Sandpiper
Ruff
Red-necked Phalarope
Oriental Pratincole
The Flyway
This image of shorebirds using the East Asian-Australasian Flyway is used with kind permission from the Queensland Department of Environment and Science.
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The East-Asian Australasian Flyway extends from Arctic Russia and North America to New Zealand and is used by over 50 million migratory waterbirds. The countries that comprise the East-Asian Australasian Flyway are: the USA (Alaska); Russia (Siberia); Mongolia; China; North Korea; South Korea; Japan; the Philippines; Vietnam; Laos; Thailand; Cambodia; Myanmar; Bangladesh; India; Malaysia; Singapore; Brunei; Indonesia; Timor; Papua New Guinea; Australia and New Zealand.
Links to more information about the East-Asian Australasian Flyway and the birds that frequent it: Birdlife Australia: www.birdlife.org.au Australian Wader Studies Group: www.awsg.org.au Global Flyway Network: www.globalflywaynetwork.com.auwww.globalflywaynetwork.com.au Australian Government: www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/migratory/waterbirds Miranda Shorebird Centre: www.miranda-shorebird.org.nz Wetlands International: www.wetlands.org US Fish and Wildlife Service: www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/shrbird/shrbird.html The Partnership for the East-Asian Australasian Flyway: http://www.eaaflyway.net/ The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands: http://www.ramsar.org |
The significance of the Flyway
'From a human perspective, Australasia and the countries stretching along the Pacific Rim are already connected in important ways – by history and commerce, alliances and agreements. Less frequently, however, do we consider the ecological connections between these nations, spun by the dramatic journeys of migratory birds. Their globe-spanning flights link countries separated by thousands of kilometres, as well as those separated by ideology, language and culture. In a world where diplomacy can seem a daunting challenge, these avian ambassadors fly readily from country to country, with dependence on all but allegiance to none.
A feather grown to grace the breast of a godwit in New Zealand may someday be used to line the nest of a tundra-dwelling songbird near the Bering Sea. Tiny grains of stony detritus washed down from the highlands of central China may frame the burrow of a mud-dwelling worm in the Yellow Sea, a worm that helps fuel the flight of a Great Knot when it stops en route from the tropical coast of Australia to the windblown summits of the Chukotka Peninsula. Near the shores of the Sea of Ohkotsk, a young Nordmann’s Greenshank may leap from its nest in a tree to gorge among the wetlands of Sakhalin, only to fall prey months later to a hungry raptor along the shores of the South China Sea. A singing male Spoon-billed Sandpiper may perch atop the weathered rib of an Arctic whale at the summer solstice, then leave dainty tracks across the vast grey tidal flats of the Bay of Bengal before the autumnal equinox. Undaunted by the borders drawn on our two-dimensional maps, these feathered travellers remind us that we are connected in ways more profound and substantive than those set forth in the carefully crafted phrases of treaty and trade.'
From ‘Time is Running Out’ by Brian McCaffery, Chapter 1 of Invisible Connections: why migrating shorebirds need the Yellow Sea by Jan van de Kam, Phil Battley, Brian McCaffery, Danny Rogers, Jae-Sang Hong, Nial Moores, Ju Yung-ki, Jan Lewis and Theunis Piersma. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria, Australia, 2010.
A feather grown to grace the breast of a godwit in New Zealand may someday be used to line the nest of a tundra-dwelling songbird near the Bering Sea. Tiny grains of stony detritus washed down from the highlands of central China may frame the burrow of a mud-dwelling worm in the Yellow Sea, a worm that helps fuel the flight of a Great Knot when it stops en route from the tropical coast of Australia to the windblown summits of the Chukotka Peninsula. Near the shores of the Sea of Ohkotsk, a young Nordmann’s Greenshank may leap from its nest in a tree to gorge among the wetlands of Sakhalin, only to fall prey months later to a hungry raptor along the shores of the South China Sea. A singing male Spoon-billed Sandpiper may perch atop the weathered rib of an Arctic whale at the summer solstice, then leave dainty tracks across the vast grey tidal flats of the Bay of Bengal before the autumnal equinox. Undaunted by the borders drawn on our two-dimensional maps, these feathered travellers remind us that we are connected in ways more profound and substantive than those set forth in the carefully crafted phrases of treaty and trade.'
From ‘Time is Running Out’ by Brian McCaffery, Chapter 1 of Invisible Connections: why migrating shorebirds need the Yellow Sea by Jan van de Kam, Phil Battley, Brian McCaffery, Danny Rogers, Jae-Sang Hong, Nial Moores, Ju Yung-ki, Jan Lewis and Theunis Piersma. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria, Australia, 2010.
A Case in Point: The Birds that Fly to the MoonEvery year, individual Bar-tailed Godwits fly from their breeding grounds in Alaska and Siberia to Australia or New Zealand to overwinter, then return to the northern hemisphere to breed once more.
One bird was satellite tracked during her flight south. She was recorded travelling from Alaska to New Zealand in over 8 days and nights of continuous flying. This is the longest non-stop migratory flight of any bird ever recorded. A godwit may live for more than 20 years. As it may undertake two journeys between the hemispheres each year, a godwit can fly more than 464,000 km over the course of its lifetime. The distance from the earth to the moon is only 384,399 km. These are the birds that fly to the moon. |
Glass installation by Kate Gorringe-Smith
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Bar-tailed Godwits breed beyond the Arctic Circle during the tundra’s brief summer. In the few short weeks when snow and ice recede, they gather for an annual explosion of life: feasting, mating, nesting. Then, as the snowclouds muster, as they always do, the birds gather and set flight, lacing the sky with skeins of life, flying fast and straight to escape the cold.
Guided by the sun, the stars, the sound of the waves, the smell of the sea, and a set of maps as old as their species, the birds chase the sun. Ancient knowledge draws them on. They fly over land and over sea. They fly by day and by night. They fly through our dreams, dark silhouettes against the stars. They travel down the coast of Asia, where they sometimes stop on mudflats in huge restless flocks to call and eat, searching for crabs and sandworms with their soft-tipped bills, to fuel the remaining miles across the ocean.
The first birds begin to reach their destination by August. They alight in Australia or New Zealand, with shrunken organs and frayed wings, their weight halved. Many of their number are lost to the perils of their journey. Here they rest, recover, and wait out the boreal winter. They do not nest in the south. They do not mate in the south. Their cries are a different, softer language of warning and contentment - a contrast to the strident mating calls that echoed through the northern skies. They eat and moult, waiting for the ancestral voices to stir them with the longing to return north.
As they roost on the sheltered sandspits of the south, do they dream of the north? As they nest in the tundra, warming their eggs, do they dream of the stars they follow south? Where in their small dense bodies lies the giant beating heart of their restlessness? And where is the map they follow, restlessly, relentlessly, charting skies, oceans and territories?
Guided by the sun, the stars, the sound of the waves, the smell of the sea, and a set of maps as old as their species, the birds chase the sun. Ancient knowledge draws them on. They fly over land and over sea. They fly by day and by night. They fly through our dreams, dark silhouettes against the stars. They travel down the coast of Asia, where they sometimes stop on mudflats in huge restless flocks to call and eat, searching for crabs and sandworms with their soft-tipped bills, to fuel the remaining miles across the ocean.
The first birds begin to reach their destination by August. They alight in Australia or New Zealand, with shrunken organs and frayed wings, their weight halved. Many of their number are lost to the perils of their journey. Here they rest, recover, and wait out the boreal winter. They do not nest in the south. They do not mate in the south. Their cries are a different, softer language of warning and contentment - a contrast to the strident mating calls that echoed through the northern skies. They eat and moult, waiting for the ancestral voices to stir them with the longing to return north.
As they roost on the sheltered sandspits of the south, do they dream of the north? As they nest in the tundra, warming their eggs, do they dream of the stars they follow south? Where in their small dense bodies lies the giant beating heart of their restlessness? And where is the map they follow, restlessly, relentlessly, charting skies, oceans and territories?
Bar-tailed Godwits. Photo by Chris Purnell.
Why Shorebirds Need the Yellow Sea
Most of the migratory shorebirds that make the huge journey from our shores in Australia to Siberia and Alaska and back will make a stopover on their way. They may stop many times in a variety of countries to rest and refuel, but almost every species, either on their way north or on their way south, will make at least one stopover on the shores of the Yellow Sea, a sea bounded by China, North Korea and South Korea. The fiercely growing economies of these nations have caused them to reclaim land from the Yellow Sea by creating sea walls and draining mudflats - vital shorebird habitat. The decline in shorebird numbers (e.g. numbers of Eastern Curlew dropped by 80% in the last year alone) mirrors the rising rate at which habitat in the Yellow Sea is being destroyed.