Black-tailed godwits don’t belong to a single place. They connect wetlands in West Africa, agricultural landscapes in southern Europe, and breeding habitats in northern Eurasia. Each spring, black-tailed godwits leave wetlands across Africa and southern Europe to begin journeys spanning thousands of kilometres. These migrations reveal how a chain of habitats across continents supports their survival—and how closely these ecosystems are connected.
Some godwits winter in West Africa, particularly in the Senegal River delta, while others remain in southern Spain and Portugal, feeding in rice fields and coastal marshes. As spring approaches, they move toward breeding grounds in northern Europe, linking distant regions through a shared migratory system.
The migration of black-tailed godwit Manfred this spring.
Godwits are true endurance athletes. Some godwits fly nearly 3,000 kilometres without stopping, reaching speeds of around 60 kilometres per hour. Others undertake even more extreme journeys, crossing the Himalayas, where peaks exceed 7,000 metres.
Yet what fascinates Prof. dr. Theunis Piersma most is their timing: year after year, black-tailed godwits arrive in the Netherlands just as spring conditions start to improve. This timing is remarkably flexible. During a late snowstorm in April 2013, many birds adjusted their behavior—delaying migration, moving south again, or increasing foraging—before successfully breeding once conditions had improved.
Tracking technology reveals these journeys in detail. Lightweight transmitters allow us to follow individual birds across continents, showing where they stop, how fast they travel, and even how high they fly.
This year a male godwit named Manfred travelled more than 2,047 kilometres between the Iberian Peninsula and the Netherlands, following a direct route across Spain, the Bay of Biscay, and France. His track shows that he set a precise course toward the Netherlands immediately after leaving his staging area near Lisbon.
