Black-tailed Godwit

• conservaciónIt is in marked decline across Europe as farming intensifies on the wet meadows where it traditionally breeds, which has cut its nesting success sharply.
• Practically the whole population that winters in Africa stops over at Doñana on its way back to the breeding grounds; Veta la Palma and the nearby rice fields can hold in January 23% of the total of the East Atlantic Flyway.
• Doñana has become the main European wintering area, displacing Africa, a change tied to extensive fish farming and to the winter use of the rice fields.
• European youngsters stay on in Africa after their first winter and do not return until they are two.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat & environment

In winter and on migration it occupies rice fields, coastal saltpans, marshes, saltmarsh and estuaries. It breeds in damp meadows of tall grass and soft ground, peat bogs and wet steppe depressions of northern and central Europe

Birth weight

Precocial: born covered in down and leaves the nest within a few hours

Size at birth

Precocial: born covered in down and leaves the nest within a few hours

Sexual maturity

2 years

Gestation / incubation

22-24 days of incubation

Litter / clutch size

3-4 eggs in a small scrape on the ground among the vegetation, from May to July

Sources consulted: SEO/BirdLife (ficha y III Atlas de las aves en época de reproducción en España); IUCN Red List; Asturnatura; Márquez Ferrando et al. 2014; Masero et al. 2011, Ardeola; Navedo, Masero y Juanes 2007, Ardeola 54(2); Acuerdo AEWA; Estación Biológica de Doñana (CSIC)

Best time: From November to March in the rice fields and saltpans of the south, peaking in January in Doñana