Habitat
Bar-tailed Godwits breed largely in low-elevation coastal areas in the subarctic and Arctic. Nesting habitats include tundra (often with shrub thickets), wet sedge meadows, rolling uplands, and in Eurasia, open birch and larch woodlands. Outside of the breeding season, during pre-migratory staging, migration, and the nonbreeding season, Bar-tailed Godwits typically occur on mudflats or sand flats along bays, estuaries, and ocean shorelines.
Back to topFood
During the breeding season, Bar-tailed Godwits feed on insects, spiders, and berries. At other times of year, they eat mollusks, crustaceans, worms, and seeds. On the breeding grounds, they pick insects and berries from vegetation while walking, and also probe for prey in lichens, mosses, and grasses. In wet areas the probing can be shallow or deep. Sometimes the bird buries its entire bill or even submerges the head; or uses a dowitcher-like “sewing machine” technique of shallow, rapid probes close together.
Back to topNesting
Nest Placement
Both sexes help create a simple scrape on the ground. They often place the nest near tussocks and conceal it under sedges, dwarf shrubs, or other standing vegetation.
Nest Description
Usually a simple scrape or depression in tundra vegetation. Lined with lichens, mosses, dead leaves, and dry root fibers.
Nesting Facts
| Clutch Size: | 2-5 eggs |
| Number of Broods: | 1 brood |
| Incubation Period: | 20-21 days |
| Egg Description: | Greenish, usually with some brownish markings. |
Behavior
Bar-tailed Godwits are bold and conspicuous on their nesting grounds, aggressively confronting predators that may be up to a half-kilometer (0.3 miles) from the nest site. They also join other shorebird species in attack-mobbing predators like hawks, eagles, jaegers, cranes, gulls, and ravens. After the breeding season, Bar-tailed Godwits congregate on migratory staging grounds in the thousands to fatten up before their long flight. Flocks at some sites on the nonbreeding grounds can number in the tens of thousands.
Bar-tailed Godwits are likely monogamous, with pairs bonding for an entire breeding season. Both sexes build the nest and incubate eggs. Chicks are well-developed upon hatching, and can run, swim, and catch insects within a day or two of hatching. Adults typically leave their young once they are able to fly after 28–30 days.
Back to topConservation
Partners in Flight estimates Bar-tailed Godwit’s global population size at 1,100,000 breeding individuals (with most birds breeding in Eurasia) and rates the species a 14 out of 20 on the Continental Concern Score, indicating a Yellow Watch List species of high conservation concern.
Back to topCredits
Bird Banding Laboratory. North American Bird Banding Program Longevity Records. Version 2023.2. Eastern Ecological Science Center. US Geological Survey. Laurel, MD.
Dunne, P. (2006). Pete Dunne's essential field guide companion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, USA.
Jonsson, L. (1992). Birds of Europe with North Africa and the Middle East. Christopher Helm, London, United Kingdom.
McCaffery, B. J. and R. E. Gill (2020). Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Partners in Flight (2023). Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2023.
Sibley, D. A. (2014). The Sibley Guide to Birds, second edition. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, USA.
Svensson, L., K. Mullarney, and D. Zetterström (2009). Collins Bird Guide. Second edition. HarperCollins, London, UK.