HE was gone for three years — but
not forgotten. South Australians feared their favourite feathered friend had
perished after he dropped off the radar until this photo emerged.
The AdvertiserJUNE 19,
201810:27PM
HE’S back! Go-Go Godwit, South
Australia’s premier frequent flyer, has been sighted in China after fans feared
he may have flown into the sunset.
The male Bar-tailed godwit
regularly spends summer at Thompson Beach, north of Adelaide, where he was
tagged by volunteers in 2012 and leaves in autumn on an incredible journey
north to breeding grounds in the Arctic Circle.
The annual migratory journey
these birds take from Adelaide to the Arctic via China involves a round trip of
around 26,000km.
Given that godwits can live for
up to 30 years, a bird could fly up to 800,000km in migratory journeys during
its life, about the same as a return trip to the moon.
Go-Go, more formally known as AKK
due to the identification tag on his leg, was last
seen in China in 2015 when The Advertiser reported his progress.
Since then he fell off the radar,
leading to fears he had died or been killed.
However. after three years
missing in action the plucky traveller has been spotted at Nanpu on Bohai Bay
in China where wildlife photographer Adrian Boyle took a mobile phone photo
through a telescope to confirm his unique yellow tag.
The reappearance of the
long-distance local has overjoyed local shorebird watchers who are well aware
of the toll exhaustion, hunting and habitat loss takes on the thousands of
birds who leave each year from Gulf St Vincent beaches on their epic flight.
Adrian Boyle, originally from
Millicent, has been a regular visitor to Bohai Bay to count and scan the
mudflats for flagged birds. He is part of the Global Flyway Network, a
partnership between researchers worldwide devoted to the long term study of
long distance migrating shorebirds.
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