Bar-tailed Godwit

The bar-tailed godwit is a large, strongly migratory wading bird in the family Scolopacidae, feeding on bristle-worms and shellfish on coastal mudflats and estuaries and identifiable by its red breeding plumage, long legs and long upturned bill. It breeds on Arctic coasts and tundra from Scandinavia to Alaska and winters on coasts in temperate and tropical Australia and New Zealand; the Alaska-to-New-Zealand crossing made by its baueri subspecies, over 29,000 kilometres round trip, is the longest known non-stop flight of any bird and the longest journey without feeding made by any animal.