Colour-rings and radio-tracking are helping to chart the ongoing decline of the Dutch Black-tailed Godwit population.
A Portuguese rice field, full of limosa Black-tailed Godwits; most are Dutch breeders
The Black-tailed Godwit is the national bird of the Netherlands, the country in which the vast majority of the West European limosa race breed. These Dutch birds are an important part of the country’s cultural heritage and are of major international significance. Large amounts of money have gone into supporting the species, and the meadows that they share with others such as Redshank and Snipe, but efforts so far have failed to reverse a Black-tailed Godwit decline that has been going on since at least the 1970s. This negative situation is in stark contrast to the increases seen in the islandica subspecies that breeds in Iceland and winters in countries between Scotland and Spain. (There’s a comparison of the two subspecies…
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