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We are still disappointed not to have seen more Black-tailed Godwits. Our best spot, which on the right day will have 1200 birds, was today home to only 210 birds. However, we did manage to check 700 birds, at a variety of sites, and were delighted to add ten new individuals to our list for the trip. The early Portuguese dominance has continued but we also found new Godwits from Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Ireland, Spain and France.
We came across one pair of colour-ringed birds that have set up territory in a gem of a wetland just behind Reykjavik’s new Ikea. It is quite strange to appreciate that we know that one of them has spent the winter in France and the other in Portugal, since they last saw each other last August.
Black-tailed Godwits go their separate ways at the end of each breeding season and, so far, we have no recorded instance of individuals from the same pair wintering in the same country, let alone together. Geese, on the other hand, migrate south as families and the pairs are still obvious in the flocks we see feeding in Iceland. We went out to Alftanes, the nature reserve surrounding the official residence of the Icelandic President this afternoon. Scanning through the Brent Geese, fattening up for the journey to Greenland and Arctic Canada, we quickly wrote down the letter/number codes for 25 birds that will have spent the winter in Ireland. Looking for ringed birds can become quite addictive!
This is our last postcard from Iceland. It is not the end of the spring work of the godwit team. Tómas Gunnarsson, José Alves and Becca Hayhow will move to the East of Iceland to meet the later arrivals – and hopefully to catch up with the Black-tailed Godwits that may well be setting off from the UK as I type. It will be sad to have to leave before the big waves of Knot and Sanderling arrive and before the geese set off on their journeys to Greenland. We will leave Brett Westwood to report on these events for World on the Move when he comes here in May.
Graham Appleton
Further Reading:
Last report: Eleventh Postcard from Iceland