River Itchen Godwits

Since 2011 Black-tailed Godwits have been using the Itchen estuary for foraging prior to migration back to breeding grounds in Iceland. Numbers build up during late winter and early spring, peaking at the end of March. The best year was 2013 when 154 were counted. Eight colour ringed birds were noted, one of them returning in five years. 2018 looks like a poor year. 34 have been recorded on one date (25th March). Since then the only counts have been three and seven.

Year	Peak Date	Max. count	Last Date
2011	11 Apr.	117	15 Apr.
2012	28 Mar.	44	28 Mar.
2013	28 Mar.	154	01 May
2014	21 Mar.	83	04 Apr.
2015	27 Feb.	53	04 Apr.
2016	18 Mar.	19	18 Apr.
2017	31 Mar.	42	04 Apr.