NOVEMBER 2015 • VOL 13, ISSUE 11 THANKS TO OUR ADVERTISERS, IT’S STILL…
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The Best of the Pacific Northwest!
THE
Marbled Godwit A
ll I noticed at first was that BILL/Beak—it was Big and I mean BIG! TOP: A flight of Marbled it’s as if they have someone calling out the directions for them. It is a When I checked my trusty bird book later I found that it was at least Godwits wheels over a beautiful sight to behold. When startled you can hear them calling, terthree to five inches in length. The beak was dark colored toward the slight- landing spot WHIT, terWHIT, terWHIT. ly upturned end. I found this bird’s name to be Marbled Godwit (limosa LOWER LEFT: A marbled In reading up on these Godwits the book states that they were once a Godwit strolls through a fedoa) limosa means muddy which tells you it feeds in muddy areas. gamebird. It was this that led to their decline on the East side of the U.S. mud flat, looking for a meal. There are a number of Godwits that one might spot in the northwest LOWER RIGHT: This fellow is a They sometimes nest in the grassy areas in the interior of N. America— with the Marbled being the most common. They breed in Southern Bar-Tailed Godwit — always near water. The food they consume there consists of grasshoppers Central Canada and even extending into the U.S. They winter on the another version of the and other insects. The food they probe for in muddy areas and tidal flats Southern Coasts of the U.S. and Mexico, migrating as far South as Godwit family to log in your consists of worms, mollusks, and crustaceans. They seem to always be Guatemala, Beliz and rarely to Equador, Peru, or Chile. Washington State bird book, should you spot able to find food to their liking just about anywhere. one on its migration path. get around 1,000 that pass through on their way South. It seems that Washington State gets three Godwit species. The common When we first spotted this big shore bird we noted the long beak, the long bluish legs Marbled, the Hudsonian which is rare, with no more than a handful seen each year, and and then the rich buff-brown mottled upper part of the body. In looking closer we could the Bar-tailed. The Bar-tailed is also rare to Washington with no more than a handful seen see that the underparts were finely barred. The linings of the wings were cinnamon-rufous each year. These rarities breed in Alaska, spend our winters in New Zealand and migrate as were the ‘armpits’. The tail is dark buff barred with black. up and down Eastern Asia. Doug Schurman and family saw one each of the Hudsonian We have seen flocks of these Godwits flying swift and strong in long lines. When they and Bar-tailed in the Grays Harbor area recently. Wish we had been there. group up they change directions at the snap of a finger showing their underparts clearly;