Every Autumn Millions Of Birds,

fly from Alaska to New Zealand for the winter,

photograph Dhaval Vargiya/Unsplash, but one of these, a bar-tailed godwit, (Limosa lapponica), fitted with a mini tracker, flew 13,560 kilometres (8,425 miles) without stopping, and setting a new Guinness record in the process, all because of a detour which added an extra 500 kilometres to its travels, recorded data showed that the five-month-old bar-tailed godwit took off on October 13 from the wetlands of the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta in Alaska, followed the regular route across the Pacific Ocean down to New Caledonia and through the Tasman Sea, before making an unexpected 90-degree turn that saw it head towards Tasmania rather than New Zealand, Dr. Woehler estimates that the bird lost “half or more of its body weight,” during the 11-day continuous flight, but it made it to dry land safely, setting a new Guinness record for long-distance bird flight,

image credit and news: Pukorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre, “Short-tailed shearwaters and mutton birds can land on the water and feed,” Eric Woehler of Birdlife Tasmania told ABC News. “If a godwit lands on water, it’s dead. It doesn’t have the webbing in its feet, it has no way of getting off the water. So if it falls into the water from exhaustion, if bad weather forces it onto the ocean surface, that’s it.” Scientists were able to track the godwit’s record flight with the help of a tiny tracker that only weighed 5 grams, technological advancements have allowed researchers to track such small species of birds without endangering them, as adding any kind of significant weight to a creature that weighs only between 300 and 400 grams could put its life in danger, “It’s one thing to put a satellite tag on an albatross that weights five or more kilos but it’s a completely different story in terms of technology and ethics to put a tracker on a bird that weighs only 300 or 400 grams,” Dr. Woehler said, scientists have yet to understand how birds like the bar-tailed godwit are able to navigate such large distances without stopping and without getting lost, 13,560 kilometres (8,425 miles) without stopping, and the birds find their way there at only 5 months old, how amazing is all of that?