Image above shows you satellite tagged Bar tailed Godwit D8. I was lucky enough to locate this bird Thursday prior to the run up of the high tide. This is in fact the first satellite tagged wader I have seen-found. I have sent the details off to all the relevant people involved with this project and heard back from everyone. This is from New Zealand, Alaska and Australia (Thank you all). This is a small part of the email and a brief history of this bird D8 I received.
"Thank you for sending along your sighting of D8. He has been seen at Miranda before, but not recently. D8 was tagged back in February 2008 at Miranda. Based on the satellite tracks, he flew up to Alaska via the the Yellow Sea staging area and then flew over to western Alaska. He set up a breeding territory on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and then moved to the Kuskokwim shoals during post breeding. The Shoals are the post-breeding staging area for most Alaskan Godwits. His transmitter ran out of charge before he traveled south, but since people re-sighted him we knew he had made it back to NZ. Good to know he continues to frequent Miranda"
Image above and below what I believe to be a second individual, now I never got to read the flag code on this bird as it never put it's right leg down. All I did manage to see was the black flag on the upper right leg a few times when the bird changed it angle or preened. The leg seemed to be floppy from the joint, almost damaged in some way. I stayed on this bird constantly for over 4 hours which was painful at times as I often lost the bird in the flock as it jostled for position. When the run off of the tide did begin I had to move myself around trying despeartely not to loose view of the satellite antenna of which I did several times but got lucky and always managed to relocate this bird. In the end it it looked up, hopped on the same leg twice and took to the air never revealing the code on its flag. "Frustratingly Annoying"
Above the shows what I believe to be the 2nd Barwit, (but could be wrong) with the satellite antenna clearly visible, however in certain lights and angles this could be very difficult to see.
Image above and below shows the bird starting to be "crowded out" by more Barwits that were arriving on the rising tide. The tide was a low 3.3 on this day and so the birds only got pushed up half away in to the bay making viewing and finding flag / colour ringed individuals extremely difficult hence the poor record shots in this posting. Note in the photo below the Barwit to the front left of the satellite tagged individual is wearing a white colour ring on the upper right leg. I used this bird to help locate the satellite tagged bird at times but this only works pending neither birds had moved. I will continue to try and search for this and maybe any other satellite tagged birds during the remainder of my time here at Miranda.
