Ruddy turnstone migration

This is ruddy turnstone (and sanderling) video.

From BirdLife:

A Ruddy Long Way to Fly

09-04-2010

A technological breakthrough has enabled researchers from the Australasian Wader Studies Group – a special interest group of Birds Australia [BirdLife Partner] – to study the amazing migratory routes of Ruddy Turnstone Arenaria interpres. Four birds fitted with ultra-light geolocators took just six days to fly from Australia to Taiwan before continuing on to northern Siberia. One bird then completed its return trip back to Australia via the Central Pacific – a total round-trip of 27,000 km!

Ruddy Turnstone is a small, highly-migratory wading bird with a large global range. It breeds in northern latitudes in open tundra habitat often close to water. Outside the breeding season it is found along coastlines, particularly on rocky or stony shores. It is the only species of turnstone in much of its range and is often called Turnstone.

“We have been amazed at the feats of Bar-tailed Godwit tracked by satellite from Australia and New Zealand to their breeding grounds in the high Arctic and back”, said Dr Clive Minton from the Australasian Wader Studies Group. “Unfortunately the size of the satellite transmitters, and the batteries required to power them, precluded their use on smaller shorebirds like Ruddy Turnstone”. …

The researchers therefore decided to use new 1 gram light-sensor geolocators – supplied by British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England – and fitted them to eight Ruddy Turnstone spending their non-breeding season in south-east Australia in April 2009. Four geolocators were eventually retrieved from birds between 20 October 2009 and 8 January 2010.

See also here.

Bar-tailed godwit sets record for long-distance flight: How is it possible to fly 11 000 kilometers: here.

We studied movements of Thin-billed prions (Aves, Procellariiformes), breeding at the Subantarctic Falkland/Malvinas Islands, compared with those of Wilson’s storm-petrels breeding in the Antarctic South Shetland Islands. The two species showed opposite migratory movements. While Wilson’s storm-petrels moved to warmer waters north of the Drake Passage in winter, Thin-billed prions showed a reversed movement towards more polar waters. Carbon stable isotope ratios in recent and historical feathers indicated that poleward winter movements of Thin-billed prions were less common historically (45% in 1913-1915), and have only recently become dominant (92% in 2003-2005), apparently in response to warming sea temperatures: here.

Bar-tailed godwit photo: here.