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  Profile

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  In flight

Cranes & Waders

Black-tailed Godwit

Limosa limosa

• uncommon
• 40 km/h
• Near Threatened

Cinnamon-breasted in summer, ghost-grey in winter. Delivers messages dressed for the season.

Population

450,000-585,000 mature individuals, declining (~20-29% decline over three generations)

Habitat

Breeds in wet grasslands, fens, damp meadows, moorland, bogs, and agricultural pastures with soft soil and tall (but not dense) grass; non-breeding season uses estuaries, mudflats, salt marshes, swamps, flooded grassland, and freshwater wetlands (inland sites favored over purely coastal)

Fun fact

A Black-tailed Godwit color-ringed as a juvenile in 1996 on The Wash, England, was later recorded alive at 29 years 2 months old — one of the oldest ages documented for the species.

Range

Breeds in a large discontinuous range from Iceland across Europe to central Asia and the Russian Far East (east to the Yenisei); winters across western and southern Europe (UK, Ireland, France, Netherlands, Iberia), Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia (India, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia), and Australasia (Australia, Papua New Guinea)

Diet

Mainly invertebrates (beetles, flies, grasshoppers, dragonflies, mayflies, caterpillars, annelid worms, molluscs) probed from mud or soil; also fish eggs, frogspawn, tadpoles, and aquatic plant matter/seeds, especially in winter

Size

0.42 m

Wingspan

0.76 m

Lifespan

29 years