13,500 Kilometers in 11 Days: A 2022 Record Migration by a Young Bird

Migratory bird species are not strangers to long journeys. A few years ago, a four-month-old red knot that departed from Alaska reached Tasmania in less than two weeks, marking the longest nonstop migration ever documented.

Migratory Odyssey

With a wingspan of 70 to 80 centimeters and an adult weight ranging from 230 to 450 grams, red knots (Limosa lapponica) are wading shorebirds: they live and feed in estuaries, marshes, coastal areas, and along the edges of rivers.

Their typical diet includes insects, worms, mollusks, and small crustaceans. Reproducing during the Arctic and subarctic summer, they migrate over very long distances toward the southern hemisphere as the cold season approaches.

To refine the patterns of young red knots from Alaska, researchers from BirdLife Tasmania trapped several individuals and also equipped them with tiny solar-powered satellite transmitters.

As Eric Woehler explained to the BBC at the time, these devices weighed only a few grams so as not to impose additional energy demands on birds embarking on their very first transcontinental odyssey.

A Record

After gathering strength in the Alaska delta of Kuskokwim, the individual B6 began its journey on October 13, 2022 and arrived in Australia on the 26th of the same month, thereby covering a straight-line distance of a little over 13,500 kilometers in 11 days. This suggests that it relied exclusively on its body reserves to establish what remains, to this day, a record nonstop migration for a bird.

Previously, researchers had assumed that juvenile red knots paused along the route to feed more actively. The data collected showed that the continental regions they crossed generally did not offer the necessary conditions.

Precisely identifying the migratory sites of coastal birds is essential as their populations are declining significantly. Among the main threats facing them: climate change (and the associated sea-level rise), as well as habitat loss and disease outbreaks.

In 2024, butterflies undertook an epic transatlantic flight of 4,200 kilometers, also astonishing scientists.