Light weight and enormous toes enable them to negotiate rank vegetation by simply walking over the top. Within hours the parents begin walking their nestlings, seeking shallow pools where the mud is soft enough to allow probing. The young readily swim the dykes between individual washes, some families travelling as much as 10 or 12 washes. At these times the parents take care of their mobile balls of fluff in the most zealous way. All birds which by any stretch of imagination could be regarded as a potential menace are intercepted in the air and furiously pursued.
Carrion crows, large gulls, hawks and herons all receive severe punishment.
Young godwits start flying in early June and although some linger on the washes a few weeks, others leave accompanied by their parents within a few hours of being able to fly. By early July considerable numbers may be found on the Wash muds. The black-tailed godwit breeding range extends over most of Europe from Denmark and southern Sweden in the north, to France in the south and Russia in the east. The birds are perhaps most abundant in Holland where extensive reclamation schemes have not had quite the disastrous effect that might have been expected. Active conservation has been most marked in Friesland where one reserve of 66 acres held 67 godwits' nests in a single spring.