Meet Talingting or the Bar-tailed Godwit! Its scientific name is Limosa lapponica. If you’re lucky you can see them in wetland areas at the coastline during the migratory season.

Bar-tailed Godwits are migratory birds, which means they migrate or move seasonally from one location to another when their habitat or local ecosystem changes every year. See more migratory bird illustrations here!

Migratory birds like them begin to visit us between September and March. Which means some of them are getting ready for their journeys back north to breed this month! For the Talingting, this can be a non-stop journey in the air of 11,000 km, according to BirdLife International.

They travel through the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, which is like a “highway in the sky” for our migratory birds. The East Asian – Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP) works with bird-lovers and scientists in multiple countries including ours, to ensure migratory birds like Talingting can travel safely in this “highway in the sky”.

It’s nice to travel without a passport, but it can be difficult for migratory birds if countries are not taking care of feeding and breeding grounds inside their borders.

In the Visayas, Talingting may refer to multiple species of small shorebirds with pointed beaks.

Bar-tailed Godwit artprint

• If you’d like a Bar-tailed Godwit artprint, contact me on Instagram!