Migratory birds have a series of particularities that attract our attention. In general, staying in the air is more energy-expensive than being on land or in the water , so birds that decide to fly long distances do so for good reason. These animals usually spend the summers in temperate environments, where they can reproduce and find food without difficulty, and during the winter they travel to warmer places in search of a more favorable climate.
When birds migrate, they normally intersperse periods of more or less long flights with rest, either in the water or on land , to recover from the loss of energy. However, there are exceptions, and there are birds that can travel thousands of kilometers non-stop.
Plan and don’t flutter: the ‘ low cost ‘ migration
The wandering albatross ( Diomedea exulans ) is one of the largest birds in the world — 3.5 meters, no less. Thanks to its enormous wings, this animal is capable of gliding for long periods of time with little effort , at a speed that can reach 70 kilometers per hour. This makes the flight less expensive and you can fly for much longer and farther without needing to rest. They inhabit the oceans of the southern hemisphere, and can spend days in the air, stopping only to eat.
They can fly for several days, covering more than 5,500 kilometers in a single non-stop trip .
The longest non-stop flight
The advantages of the albatross are not shared by all birds; many need to flap their wings to maintain flight , and even with that condition, they can outperform the great glider.
One of the birds that covers the most distance in flapping flight is the Bar- tailed Godwit ( Limosa lapponica ) . The breeding areas are found in the Arctic Circle, distributed throughout Alaska, the entire northern coast of Russia and the Scandinavian massif. There they spend the summer, to migrate in winter to the coasts of Europe, Africa, Madagascar, Asia, Australia and Oceania.
In some of the towns the trip can be shorter, from the British Isles to northern Norway; but in other cases the birds cross the Pacific Ocean, from Australia and New Zealand to the coast of Alaska. Migrations of up to 29 280 kilometers away , carried out in only three phases: from New Zealand to China, from there to Alaska, and back to New Zealand. The longest non-stop flight on record is the latter, covering 11 690 km , on a trip of at least 8 days without rest. In the Bar-tailed Godwit we have, therefore, the record for the longest non-stop flight.
Flying days, weeks and months
Some birds are able to fly for days, but it is a rhythm that they cannot normally maintain over time . Even routes as long as those of the Bar-tailed Godwit rarely exceed two weeks. In addition, these long flights without pauses are usually common in animals that cross large seas or oceans, while when they migrate across land masses, they can and often stop to rest.
But that is not what the common swift ( Apus apus ) does . For this animal, taking flight is a complex task; its tiny legs, the shape of its body and its wings make it an exceptional acrobatic flier , but it is extremely difficult for it to take off, which it must do by dropping from a certain height, and which it rarely achieves if it tries from the ground. I usually.
In late summer, swifts leave their nesting grounds in northern Europe and migrate to sub-Saharan Africa. There they spend the whole winter in flight until they return to Europe, where they nest again, 10 months after leaving, and in some cases, 10 months after making landfall for the last time . Although most take one to three short nightly rest breaks at some point during those ten months, some individuals have been observed not settling down at all. They travel by flying, but they also feed, drink and even sleep while flying . During the evening they ascend to a great height, and remain gliding while they sleep.
Longest full migration
The longest non-stop trip in distance has been exposed, and also the longest. However, neither the Swift nor the Bar-tailed Godwit are the animals with the longest migratory journey—counting stops en route. Credit for this achievement goes to the arctic tern ( Sterna paradisaea ). It breeds in arctic and subarctic regions, like the Bar-tailed Godwit, but its wintering range is even further south than Australia or New Zealand.
Specifically, the longest migratory journey recorded so far by an arctic tern – and which corresponds to the longest migratory flight ever observed – was that of a nesting colony in the Farne Islands, in the United Kingdom . The entire route was recorded by geolocation tracking: at the end of the summer they began the journey from the Farne Islands to South Africa, on a month-long flight; from there to the Indian Ocean, where they made their first extended stop; the second and third stops were in two coastal areas of Antarctica, where they spent the austral summer; from there they returned to South Africa, and returned to the Farne Islands bordering the eastern coast of the African continent.
Complete migration was 96 000 kilometers . It is estimated that an arctic tern can fly more than three million kilometers throughout its life; like going to and coming back from the moon four times.
REFERENCES:
Åkesson, S. et al. 2005. Albatross Long-Distance Navigation: Comparing Adults And Juveniles. The Journal of Navigation, 58(3), 365-373. DOI: 10.1017/S0373463305003401
Battley, P. F. et al. 2012. Contrasting extreme long-distance migration patterns in bar-tailed godwits Limosa lapponica. Journal of Avian Biology, 43(1), 21-32. DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-048X.2011.05473.x
Liechti, F. et al. 2013. First evidence of a 200-day non-stop flight in a bird. Nature Communications, 4(1), 2554. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3554
Redfern, C. P. F. et al. 2020. Overland movement and migration phenology in relation to breeding of Arctic Terns Sterna paradisaea. Ibis, 162(2), 373-380. DOI: 10.1111/ibi.12723
