Cameras track curlew on 25,000km journey

By ANNE BESTON

The extraordinary journey of migrating birds has been made into an online documentary and the New Zealand episode was launched this week.

The documentary team for A Year on the Wing, who include a New Zealand director, gathered on the shores of the Manukau Harbour before a screening of the documentary, which tracks the flight of the bar-tailed godwit and red knot from their breeding grounds in Siberia along the East Asian-Australasian flyway.

The New Zealand leg of the birds' journey was completed last year, but the documentary is updated every two months and can be seen online.

The local episode also includes stories from tangata whenua and ornithologists. Te Wai o Hua and Waikato elder Maurice Wilson talks about the birds on the shores of the Manukau.

"A Year on the Wing represents an exciting development in documentaries," said producer and co-writer Nell White.

"It not only invites users to follow the birds on their journey, it also offers them the capacity to contribute, adding their own insights, participating in forums and interacting with other communities along the flyway."

Migratory birds follow routes across the world, known as flyways. Many flyways criss-cross the globe, each used by different species of birds.

The East Asian-Australasian flyway stretches from within the Arctic Circle in Siberia and western Alaska, through North and Southeast Asia to Australia and New Zealand.

More than two million wading birds make the 25,000km journey every year.

Of the 214 species of waders (also known as shorebirds) in the world, 55 regularly migrate along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway.

The documentary makers chose the eastern curlew as their guide in the programme.

It covers countries and states such as Russia, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Mongolia, Alaska, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, East Timor, Singapore and Papua New Guinea, as well as Australia and New Zealand.

While some birds migrate the full length of the flyway, others use only part of it. The godwit flies from Alaska to New Zealand, the eastern curlew from southeastern Siberia to New Zealand. Other eastern curlews stop in Indonesia or Australia.

The East Asian-Australasian flyway is possibly the most threatened of all the globe's flyways.

The Asia Pacific region supports more than half the world's human population, and this puts increasing pressure on the environment. For example, Japan has lost nearly 40 per cent of its wetlands in the past 50 years and Australia has lost half of its wetlands in the past 200 years.

Wetlands provide a critical chain of feeding and resting spots for wading birds as they migrate.



A Year on the Wing was produced by the Australian Film Commission and Australian Broadcasting Corporation with help from Environment Australia's Natural Heritage Trust.

A Year on the Wing


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