Longest Avian Non-Stop Flight

Monday November 26th 2007
Filed Under Current Events, Ecology 

E7 is a female bar-tailed godwit who has earned herself the distinction of the longest non-stop flight recorded for a land bird. 

nonstopflight.jpg

 

According to scientists at the USGS who tracked E7 using a satellite transmitted that she was fitted with in New Zealand:

On March 17, E7 departed Miranda on the North Island of New Zealand and flew nonstop to Yalu Jiang, China. She completed the 6,300-mile-long flight in about eight days. There E7 settled in for a 5-week-long layover before departing for breeding grounds to nest.

On the evening of May 1, she headed east out over the Sea of Japan and the North Pacific. Eventually turning east, E7 headed northeast toward Alaska, crossing the end of the Alaska Peninsula. She was on her way to her eventual nesting area on the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta in western Alaska. E7 also completed this flight without stopping, covering some 4,500 miles in five days.

Researchers then tracked E7 to the coast of the Yukon Delta where she joined other godwits preparing for their return flight to New Zealand.

E7, and the location of other Bar-Tailed Godwits currently being tracked, can be viewed from the “Where are the birds now?” map located on the USGS site. 

Source: A Nonstop Journey: Bird Completes Epic Flight From Pacific Alaska to New Zealand (seen via All Points Blog)



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