Banded stilts fly hundreds of kilometres to lay eggs that are over 50% of their body mass

Source: theconversation.com --- Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Banded Stilts feed on a range of invertebrates (including brine shrimp and snails) at saline wetlands across southern Australia. Ben Parkhurst , Author provided The hot, dry Australian desert may not come to mind as an ideal location for waterbirds to breed, but some species wait years for the opportunity to do just that. New research has shed light on one of Australia’s most enigmatic birds, the banded stilt. This pigeon-sized shorebird has long been a source of intrigue due to its bizarre and extreme breeding behaviour. They fly hundreds or thousands of kilometres from coastal wetlands to lay eggs that are 50-80% of their body mass in normally dry inland desert salt lakes, such as Lake Eyre , on the rare occasions they are inundated by flooding rain. Such behaviour has been a mystery for decades; described for the first time in 1930 , just 30 breeding events had been documented for the entire species in the following 80 years. To investigate this behaviour, and to assess the stilts’ conservation status, we began a study in 2011, during which I was based in outback South Australia, ready to jump into a small plane after every large desert rainfall. We also satellite-tagged nearly 60 banded stilts, using miniature solar powered devices around half the size of a matchbox. Sixty banded stilts were tagged with solar-powered satellite trackers. Author provided This focused survey effort – which required overcoming the logistical cha ...

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