Black-tailed Godwit

Voice

A loud, nasal grutto grutto in display flight, the source of the Dutch name, plus an agitated weeta-weeta when alarmed over a nest. Mostly March to June; wintering flocks give a short, soft kwet.

Identification

Elegant, long-legged wader with a very long, straight to slightly upturned bill with a pink base. Unmistakable in flight: broad white wing bar, white rump, black tail band and legs trailing far behind. Breeding birds show a rusty orange head, neck and breast with barred flanks; females are larger, longer-billed and duller. Winter plumage is plain grey-brown.

Confusion species

Bar-tailed Godwit has an upturned bill, shorter legs, no white wing bar and a barred tail, with a white wedge up the back in flight. Icelandic birds, subspecies islandica, are shorter-billed and shorter-legged with deeper rufous reaching the belly, and occur mainly on the coast. Curlew has a decurved bill.

Habitat

Damp, herb-rich grassland with a high water table and an open horizon, including shallow flooded fields kept wet for the purpose. Outside the breeding season on mudflats, saltmarsh, rice fields and shallow brackish lagoons.

Range and movements

Breeds from western Europe east into Russia, with the Dutch peat meadows the core of the range. Dutch birds gather in Iberia in February and again in July and August: the rice fields of Extremadura and the Doñana marshes are indispensable staging areas on the way to and from West Africa.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

Mid-March to May, just after sunrise beside a wet, shallow-flooded field in Friesland or the Groene Hart; watch for the song flight with its rocking wingbeats. In Spain, January and February at the Extremaduran rice fields, when returning birds mass before the jump north.

Conservation status

Near Threatened globally and declining sharply in the Netherlands. Drainage, early and repeated mowing, uniform ryegrass swards and predation mean too few chicks fledge. Recovery depends on wet, herb-rich grassland with delayed mowing and on protecting the Iberian staging sites.