UKH

Copied from twitter:

”Phenomenal. Bar-tailed Godwit has broken its own record: a first-year bird (five months old!) has flown 13,560 km—just shy of the direct flight limit of a Boeing 787—from Alaska to Tasmania, seemingly non-stop, in just 11 days (avg. speed: c.51 km/hr).”

Wow!  Long billed, long legged waders never struck me as being mega flyers. Amazing stuff. 

Err, isn't that last October's record or has it been broken again? - all the easy to find stuff on the web seems to be dated to last year.

Regardless it's impressive stuff, but the bit I find staggering is that it shrinks various organs pre migration to increase fat stores, enlarges various muscles etc to help flying, loses maybe half its body mass during migration and then spends a wee while doing a lot of eating to get back into good shape.

Nope, this years info - released a few hours ago. 
And they shut down their digestive system. Amazing stuff. 

Also, noticed a big increase in blackbirds the past few weeks - believe from Scandinavia. It’s amazing how many of what we think are ‘our’ birds are in fact migrants. Robins are the same. Some guy who birds round marsh side noticed how coal tits looked a bit different. I had noticed miles more in my garden and then noticed colour differences.  More migrants ! Illegals.  Flocks of them !!

And 16 cattle egret at Martin Mere!  I’m guessing locally bred.  Impressive, but not really in a good way (climate change etc).  

Another "fact" according to the Guardian...

While airborne, they sleep with one eye open, switching off half their brains at a time, navigating by the stars and the Earth’s magnetic field.

My bold italic - that bit's just even more amazing

This is amazing, Apart from how do we know that they do it, for which I guess there are a few ways these days, and amazement that they can go that far and end up where they meant to end up, the really interesting question surely is why do they do it. What need do they have that is so much better satisfied by a place 13560 km away that they really had to expend all that energy to go that far? Is there one, really, or is this behaviour an evolutionary hold out from times long gone?

Incredible and hard to believe it is possible, but it obviously is with tracking data on the previous records. Had heard about birds sleeping with one eye shut and half the brain shut down, and how the Godwits prepare for their long distance travels.

A btw I got out today for the first time in around a month! No Bar tailed Godwits though, but reasonable selection of birds. Kingfishers x2, Crossbills (m&f), GS Woodpecker (f), plenty of usual ducks, Coots, Moorhens, Little Grebes, small birds of various Tits, Chaffinches, Gold Finches, a Gold Crest, and a Tree Creeper. Also, plenty of dragonflies, butterflies and a few bees still about with the warmer day it was here after all the recent wet days. All at Morton Lochs.

Didn’t get any good photos, but still nice to be out.

The why for Godwits is food supply. They have a pretty limited diet and it can’t be provided by an Alaskan winter in this case. Other Godwits breed in other parts of the far north, but migrate to other parts of the world. Some from Scandinavian artic winter in south of England if it’s favourable.

Thats how I used to drive back home after a hard day on The Ben.  

Yup

I’ve no idea. Blows my mind. Incredible. 

Nice. I got some good views of Barwits at the weekend. And can’t wait for my next trip up your neck of the woods. 

As a total aside, my wife’s a teacher and some folks ‘rescued’ a mother and baby hedgehog. They rang a local wildlife rescue centre who said “they should be hibernating.’  This is bonkers, but they advised we took them to a vets for a check up. Totally OTT. We released them back as soon as we could. I then came back and made 35 apple tarts form the apples they had foraged at Forrest Schools. May explain why I feel goosed (and worryingly, a bit Covid-like).  

That doesn’t make sense for a rescue centre saying that (or anyone thinking they needed rescuing.  East Fife was 17°C today and there is still food for the hedgehogs up here to fatten up on for the winter. England must be similar. 

Hope you manage to keep an apple pie for yourself! Take it easy though as you have a winter of birding you need energy for and to keep posting your finds on UKC!!

Some leftover apple pies/tarts, for my pre-bed snack in a few minutes. The woodland they used for foraging is owned by a local (to the school) guy.  There’s a small river/Brook (looks more like a fast flowing ditch to me), and he’s a qualified bird ringer. They’ve had kingfisher, woodpecker, bullfinch. Top bloke. Does it purely to help educate local children. When they went the other afternoon, hundreds of pink flew over. Doctor Watt is his name. 

BTW, simple shortcrust pastry with stork type Marge, and small cubes apple stewed in the oven whilst blind baking the cases. Not the most sophisticated - but reckon that’s why the children wolfed them down. Helped with the icing drizzled  over them !  

Dentists look away now...

Can't go wrong with a bit of icing, but why only drizzled? Should be a good solid layer 😁.