A team of biologists is in American Samoa to study the migratory patterns of Pacific golden plovers or tuli.
The birds visit the territory every year and earlier this year 19 were tagged with data loggers.
One of the team members, a wildlife biologists with the Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service, Joshua Fisery, says the data logger provides coordinates of where the birds migrate.
He says this helps their understanding of the birds' health and biology, which is increasingly important with climate and sea level rise threatening their habitat.
Mr Fisery says a logger they have recovered has revealed startling information.
"From American Samoa that one of these birds flew from here all the way to Japan and from Japan it went to Alaska and then returned. It's pretty amazing. And they fly that non-stop. It's very amazing. And we have done this in Hawaii and shown then from Hawaii to fly straight to Alaska, so this is really amazing."
