Sooty Shearwaters

Sooty shearwater in flight Shearwaters are named for their habit of slicing the air

just above the water as they glide on stiff, pointed wings. Only occasionally flapping their wings, they gain height by flying into the wind, then glide in a broad arc.

This map shows the tracks of 19 sooty shearwaters tagged in early 2005 and tracked for an average of 262 days during their breeding period (light blue lines) and subsequent migration.

Yellow lines show the shearwaters' northward migration from their breeding sites; orange tracks show the birds' activity in three northern Pacific foraging zones and their return trip southward.

Annual

cycle

Mutton bird chick

Bar tailed Godwit

• Godwit E7 returns from Alaska, non-stop, to the Thames Mudflats• By NZPA

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• THAMES• A bar-tailed godwit -- known to researchers as E7 -- is now back on her

favourite mudflat on the Firth of Thames after a round trip of nearly 30,000km to Alaska and back.

• E7 is the first godwit to have her full annual migration monitored by satellite. It included a southern return leg of more than 11,500km -- the longest non-stop flight by a bird to be recorded.

• "From the speed that she was going, I'm absolutely confident that she came direct," said Massey ecologist Dr Phil Battley, who tagged 16 bar-tailed godwits to identify how they made their way to and from Alaska.

•She is expected to stay " resting and refuelling" until about March, when she will make her way back to Alaska to lay eggs.