Elizabetha Hits the Fast Lane; 600 Mile Day

Elizabetha strapped on the jet pack yesterday and rocketed over most of Texas, all of Oklahoma and a good part of Kansas. She covered 960 km (599 miles) in a single day, the longest distance that she has flown so far on this 2009 spring migration. This is a pretty impressive distance for a bird for one day and one of the best flights we've seen on this project thus far.

Just for comparison, it would take a normal human, driving a car at 60 mph, ten hours to cover the same distance while driving in a straight line. With no stops.

We have been told that Elizabetha apparently holds the world record for distance covered in a single day by a bird (954 miles). She did that flying down the east coast last fall.

But I have to say that 600 miles is still very impressive, especially since she wasn't riding the tail of a hurricane vortex.

She roosted in open farm country about 189 km (117 miles) west of Wichita in some pretty flat agricultural lands. The town of Kinsley was about 3.3 kn (2 miles) to her south.

She slept near an area of farm buildings, possibly on the ground, but I suspect it to be more likely that she selected a pole of some sort.