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Marbled Godwit Collides with Aircraft at 3,700 mAuthor(s): Carla J. Dove and Court GoodroeSource: The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, 120(4):914-915. 2008.Published By: The Wilson Ornithological SocietyDOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1676/07-189.1URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1676/07-189.1

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914 THE WILSON JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY • Vol. 120, No. 4, December 2008

The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 120(4):914–915, 2008

Marbled Godwit Collides with Aircraft at 3,700 m

Carla J. Dove1,3 and Court Goodroe2

ABSTRACT.—On 25 August, 2007, a MarbledGodwit (Limosa fedoa) was struck by a Southwest Air-lines Boeing 737 at 3,700 m. The bird was identifiedby examination of feather remains recovered from theaircraft and represents an altitude record for this spe-cies. Received 13 December 2007. Accepted 12 April2008.

Bird/aircraft collisions (birdstrikes) are anincreasing hazard to aviation safety and causemillions of dollars of damage to both civil andmilitary aviation each year (Dolbeer et al.2000). Height distributions of major groups ofbirds that collide with aircraft have been re-cently investigated using data from civil air-craft birdstrikes, but attempts to make speciescomparisons with these data were not possiblebecause only �23% of the birdstrikes above152 m were identified to the species level(Dolbeer 2006). Increasing the percentage ofbirds identified to species that are involved inbirdstrikes will improve techniques used to re-duce birdstrikes as well as aid in our under-standing of flight patterns and altitudes of dif-ferent species of birds.

We describe the identification of a high al-titude birdstrike involving a Marbled Godwit(Limosa fedoa) with an aircraft that had takenoff from El Paso, Texas, USA.

OBSERVATIONS

On 25 August 2007, a Southwest AirlinesBoeing 737 aircraft struck a bird at 1051 hrsMDT. The bird was struck just east of El Paso,Texas during the ‘climb’ phase of flight ondeparture. The altitude was recorded by theflight crew at the time of the strike at about3,700 m above ground level. The plane re-turned to El Paso, landing 24 min after takeoffwith damage to the left horizontal stabilizer,

1 National Museum of Natural History, MRC 116,P. O. Box 37012, Washington, D.C. 20013, USA.

2 Southwest Airlines Company, 2702 LovefieldDrive, Dallas, TX 75235, USA.

3 Corresponding author; e-mail: dovec@si.edu

fuselage, and radome. Sufficient feather re-mains from the wings and body of the birdwere salvaged and submitted to the Smithson-ian Institution. The bird was identified as aMarbled Godwit based on color patterns andsize of the feathers in comparison with mu-seum specimens. It is unknown how manybirds were struck or if additional species wereinvolved in this event.

DISCUSSION

This is the highest known altitude recordfor a godwit. The next highest record was aBar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica) founddead on Mt. Ruapehu (New Zealand) by hik-ers at 2,610 m in January 2006 (Battley andHorn 2006). Previous published high altitudebirdstrike records identified to the species lev-el include Ruppell’s Vulture (Gyps rueppellii)at 11,300 m (Laybourne 1974), and Mallard(Anas platyrhynchos) at 6,400 m (Manville1963). The Marbled Godwit involved in thisbirdstrike was within the range of the southernfall migration for this species (Gratto-Trever2000) and documents that a fairly short-dis-tance migrant can attain high flight altitudesduring migration. Accurate birdstrike report-ing detailing such data as in this event, to-gether with molecular techniques that now aidin species level identifications from blood andtissue samples, will improve ornithologicalknowledge of flight altitudes of birds.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the Southwest Airlines crew for accuratelyreporting this birdstrike. M. A. Heacker and N. C.Rotzel assisted with the bird identification.

LITERATURE CITED

BATTLEY, P. F. AND C. HORN. 2006. A high-altitude Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica) on Mt Ruapehu,North Island, New Zealand. Notornis 53:381–382.

DOLBEER, R. A. 2006. Height distribution of birds re-corded by collisions with civil aircraft. Journal ofWildlife Management 70:1345–1350.

DOLBEER, R. A., S. E. WRIGHT, AND E. C. CLEARY.

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2000. Ranking the hazard level of wildlife speciesto aviation. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 28:372–378.

GRATTO-TREVER, C. L. 2000. Marbled Godwit (Limosafedoa). The birds of North America. Number 492.

LAYBOURNE, R. C. 1974. Collision between a vulture

and an aircraft at an altitude of 37,000 feet. Wil-son Bulletin 86:461–462.

MANVILLE, R. H. 1963. Altitude record for Mallard.Wilson Bulletin 75:462.