Although birds can travel for miles without stopping, they do eventually need a break. One bird didn’t stop until it reached its destination and broke a record along the way by traveling over 8,000 miles from Alaska to Australia.
Guinness World Records announced that a juvenile bar-tailed godwit broke the record for the longest non-stop migration by a bird when it flew 8,435 miles from Alaska to Tasmania, Australia.
The bird, identified as tag number 234684, was wearing a 5G satellite tag when it departed Alaska on October 11, 2022. Eleven days later, the bird landed in Tasmania without stopping a single time for a rest or to find food.
Eric Woehler from Birdlife Tasmania said the record-breaking birdie most likely lost “half or more of its body weight during continuous day and night flight.”
“Short-tailed shearwaters and mutton birds can land on the water and feed. 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. So if it falls onto the ocean’s surface from exhaustion, or if bad weather forces it to land, that’s the end,” Woehler added.
The record was previously set in 2020 by another bar-tailed godwit. The recent attempt broke the record by an easy 217 miles.