Teenage waders

Hudsonian Godwit in breeding plumage

A paper by Juan Navedo & Jorge Ruiz, focusing on Hudsonian Godwits, raises important points about the conservation of the world’s larger shorebirds.

Many curlews and godwits don’t breed in their first year but what do they do instead and how quickly do individuals recruit into the breeding population? These answers have direct implications for the conservation of these species, numbers of which are declining in most cases.

Hudsonian Godwits

Hudsonian Godwits breed in Alaska and Canada and spend the non-breeding season in Chile and Argentina. There are three well-separated breeding populations; in south-central and western Alaska, along the northwest coast of Canada (Mackenzie and Anderson river deltas) and within the Hudson and James Bay region of northern Canada. These are indicated in the figure alongside, based on the map from BirdLife International’s datazone.

On migration, Hudsonian Godwits do not use coastal areas, which led to the theory that their journeys north and south might be made without a break. Satellite tracking has revealed that staging areas are continental rather than coastal. The latest research shows that birds wintering in Chile stop off in the prairies of North America on the way north. On the return journey, there are key refuelling areas in Saskatchewan (Canada) and in continental wetlands between Colombia and Argentina. Map below is from a paper from Senner et al.

Satellite tracking of two birds from the Mackenzie Delta breeding population, on Canada’s Arctic coast, revealed a 1500 mile two-day ‘hop’ to Hudson Bay, a long refuelling and moulting period and then a 4 or 5 day direct flight to South America. These are very impressive migrants!

As discussed in Why are we losing our large waders?, the Hudsonian Godwit is still considered to be of ‘least concern’ on the IUCN/BirdLife list. The fact that the species breeds over a broad sweep of Alaska and Canada, even if in discrete areas, and that the population, estimated to be 77,000 individuals (Andres et al 2012), is well over the 10,000 cut-off for threat consideration, means that the species is not yet designated as being of international concern. In Canada, Hudsonian Godwit was added to the ‘threatened species’ list in 2019, as a consequence of reduced breeding success and a major decline in the Canadian breeding population. The latest population estimate in the COSEWIC report is that there are just 41,000 mature individuals (24,300 in the Hudson Bay Lowlands, 800 in the Mackenzie Delta, and 15,750 in Alaska).

Non-breeding youngsters

Releasing a satellite-tagged Hudsonian Godwit

When Hudsonian Godwits depart from the coasts of Chile and Argentina, on their way to Alaska and Canada, they leave behind young birds that will not breed in their first year – and possibly even the second or third. These sub-adults are the future of Hudsonian Godwit conservation. In a declining population, it is important that as many as possible of these youngsters will reach maturity and breed successfully.

Juan Navedo, Jorge Ruiz and colleagues from Universidad Austral de Chile, have been studying the ecology and migratory behaviour of Hudsonian Godwits that winter in Chiloé Island (c. 32°S, Chile) as summarised here. One of the unexpected outcomes of this work is a 2020 paper in Global Ecology and Conservation, entitled Oversummering in the southern hemisphere by long-distance migratory shorebirds calls for reappraisal of wetland conservation policies. In it, they followed the movements of a small number of satellite-tagged adults and discovered significant flocks of non-breeding birds. Their great detective work has clear implications for the potential recovery of Hudsonian Godwit populations and wider consequences for other species of shorebirds that don’t breed in their early year or years of life.

Spring departure

Hudsonian Godwits in Chile are being tracked to improve understanding of the connectivity between their discrete breeding areas and their wintering areas. Tracing their journeys also helps to establish the refuelling areas that are used during northwards and southwards migration.

When it was time to depart from Chiloé Island in spring, most adult Hudsonian Godwits spent a week flying north non-stop over the Pacific, crossed Mexico and staged in the plains of North America but, in 2017, three tagged birds unexpectedly headed northeast to the Pampa wetlands of Argentina. These birds all remained in the Pampa area for five or more months. Their tags provided positions every thirty minutes, supplying the scientists with the information they needed to identify key ‘oversummering’ areas for the species. By focusing on groups of locations for two of the tagged birds, it was possible to identify a 28,000 km² area that seemed to be of particular importance. Was this where young Hudsonian Godwits (not wearing tags) spent the same period?

The paper explains how the team searched the vast area of permanent and ephemeral wetlands in a systematic way, allowing estimates to be made of the number of shorebirds of a range of species that spend time in this area, instead of migrating north to breed. Hudsonian Godwits were found in four (out of 44) wetlands in 2018 and three in 2019, making a total of 366 and 746 individuals in the two years.

Looking for Hudsonian Godwits in the Pampa Wetlands of Argentina

In their three-day surveys, the team was only able to survey a small number of potential feeding sites within the vast area. On the assumption that Hudsonian Godwits mature at the same rate as other large, long-distance migrant waders, such as limosa Black-tailed Godwits and baueri Bar-tailed Godwits, Juan Navedo and Jorge Ruiz suggest that nearly half of first-year, a quarter of second-year and 15% of third-year Hudsonian Godwits may be using these continental wetlands during a crucial stage of their lives. Numbers of Lesser Yellowlegs and Greater Yellowlegs that they found in the same habitats were also of conservation significance, and the Pampa wetlands are also a ‘summering’ area for Buff-breasted Sandpiper and Upland Sandpiper.

Conservation implications for Hudsonian Godwits

Young Hudsonian Godwits will hopefully breed in Alaska in later years

The paper by Juan Navedo & Jorge Ruiz clearly demonstrates the significance of the Pampa wetlands for waders that were raised in the Northern Hemisphere but which don’t return there until their second, third or even fourth potential breeding season. What is it about these wetlands that is so important to young Hudsonian Godwits, how vulnerable are they and what other inland areas are being used by flocks of young birds? The authors point out that the pampas habitats of Argentina are changing. The Pampa wetlands are being turned into vast swaths of agricultural land, much of which is being planted with herbicide-resistant transgenic soybean. Globally, it is estimated that 77% of soybean is grown to supply animal feed. This is a thirsty crop that requires irrigation, sucking water out of the remaining wetlands. These grassland habitats are subject to a Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation of Southern South American Migratory Grassland Bird Species and Their Habitats.

Flagged Hudsonian Godwit

The presence of some adult birds in the Pampa wetlands flocks is not surprising. As discussed and referenced in the paper, individuals that migrate long distances and that are on tight schedules may need to skip the occasional breeding season if they do not have sufficient fat reserves to head north on schedule. When studying tracked individuals of migratory shorebirds that undertake long, non-stop flights, it has been shown that birds occasionally abort their journeys if they encounter adverse weather conditions. We know that godwits of other species can live for thirty years or more so there is always next year.

Wider implications

The Hudsonian Godwit paper is not just about one species. It asks important questions about the conservation of waders and other families of birds that do not breed in their first year. Globally, have we identified the most important shorebird sites, can we protect them from development and are some sites more important than others? Do we pay these sites enough attention in the breeding season, when the large swirling flocks have departed, leaving much smaller aggregations of non-breeding birds sparsely distributesd throughout flyways? Protecting these small oversummering flocks is investing in the future of threatened wader species.

Site protection: This paper has highlighted an important issue. What do young curlews, godwits and other large and medium-sized waders do in the ‘teenage’ years – that important period between being a juvenile and being a breeding adult? Where are they? Are the sites protected? Do birds simply stay in the areas in which they settle in August, September or October, after they have flown south from the breeding grounds? The Pampa wetlands of Argentina are unlikely to be the only non-coastal areas that are used by young waders; what other sites are we missing? For Hudsonian Godwits, perhaps there needs to be a broader definition of key shorebird areas when considering candidate sites that need to be protected as part of the excellent Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network? More broadly, the authors propose that conservation agreements regarding wetlands of international concern should include a specific criterion for oversummering areas.

Figure illustrating delayed maturity of Hudsonian Godwits (from Navedo & Ruiz)

Youth clubs: Young waders recruit to the breeding population at different ages. If the typical life expectancy of a godwit is ten years then a bird that flies north in its second summer will, on average, produce 12% more chicks in its life-time than one that does not breed until a year later. Hudsonian Godwits not only need to survive in these Pampa youth clubs, they also need to thrive.

Within the same species, time of first breeding can be influenced by the non-breeding site than an individual happens to use. In their fascinating paper about Sanderling migration, summarised in the WaderTales blog Travel advice for Sanderling, Jeroen Reneerkens and colleagues showed large difference in the proportion of young birds that travelled north in the first summer. Most Sanderling that spend the winter in England and Portugal fly to Greenland in spring but only a tiny proportion of birds wintering in Ghana have this extra breeding attempt. They link these differences to site quality.

Eurasian Curlew and a young Black-tailed Godwit

Disturbance: When the number of Eurasian Curlew on a British or Irish estuary drops rapidly, in March and April, and when adult Far Eastern Curlew leave Australia to head for eastern Russia, do we pay enough attention to the small number of birds that remain?

In the northern hemisphere, in particular, the summer months of May through to July bring increased disturbance pressure to beaches and to estuaries, at a time when non-breeding waders are trying to find the resources they need to undertake their primary moult. Perhaps more thought needs to be given to zoning recreational activities in areas which are internationally designated as conservation areas? A May count of 27 Eurasian Curlew on the Exe Estuary in Devon may seem trivial, when compared to 849 in August (Wetland Bird Survey 2018), but these birds represent the future.

In summary

As Juan Navedo & Jorge Ruiz write in the abstract of their paper:

Given their delayed maturity, many long-distance migratory shorebirds may spend large portions of their lives in previously undocumented wetlands, while deferring migration. These unrecognized oversummering habitats fall outside the scope of today’s conservation efforts for Hudsonian Godwits, because they are not spatially nested within the non-breeding grounds, an issue to be studied for other shorebirds.

We are seeing rapid declines of many of the Numeniini family (see this blog about curlews, godwits and Upland Sandpiper) and other slow-maturing shorebird species, and ‘teenage birds’ deserve more attention. We have to identify the areas used by immature birds as quickly as possible, before productivity is so low that we cannot find them.

Oversummering in the southern hemisphere by long-distance migratory shorebirds calls for reappraisal of wetland conservation policies. Juan G. Navedo & Jorge Ruiz. Global Ecology and Conservation doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01189

Wintering Hudsonian Godwits on Chiloé Island, Chile.

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WaderTales blogs are written by Graham Appleton (@GrahamFAppleton) to celebrate waders and wader research. Many of the articles are based on published papers, with the aim of making shorebird science available to a broader audience.