BIRD VOYAGERS

Hokitika Guardian, 15 May 1931, Page 8

BIRD VOYAGERS

The godwits which visit these shore* every summer in such large numbers from Siberia have now completed their return migration ior the season, only a few that are too sick or weak tor the journey remain behind. The open season for them was from January 1 to March 31, and sportsmen found them just as numerous as ever. Godwits are most methodical in their habits (says the New Zealand Herald), and prior to their long flights undertaken during April, they assemble in great numbers on the Ninety-Mile Beach, at Spirits Bay and on beaches as far south as Kawhia. After reaching their destination in Siberia they begin to lay in July, and by October tin* young birds are ready to undertake the long migration. In the last stage of their journey from New Caledonia to the North Auckland peninsula, they have to cover more than 1000 miles of open ocean at one stretch. Tlie most general, ly accepted explanation of this marvellous illustration of the working of bird instinct is one put forward many yeavs ago that they are following the line of a coast that once stretched from Siberia to New Zealand in the dim geological past. The theory is that as the land surface gradually subsided and gave way to chains of islands and then to great spaces of sea, the birds continued to seek their original summer resort by the same route, in obedience to an instinct that even the most radical change in circumstances could not weaken. , „