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Orange flagged godwit amongst many waders at the Manly wader roost [SEQ]

To: Birding Aus <>
Subject: Orange flagged godwit amongst many waders at the Manly wader roost [SEQ] today
From: L&L Knight <>
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 21:17:46 +1000
There were plenty of waders but no other birders at the Manly wader roost today. I was surprised at the diversity and number of birds at this late point in the season.

While I didn't see any tereks, only one sharpie and a handful of knots, there were about 50 godwits [bar tailed as usual, a couple coloured - perhaps the males fly off earlier, and one with an orange flag on its right leg], 50 odd tattlers, dozens of stints [~ 30 coloured], about 2 dozen lesser sands [a couple fully coloured], over a dozen curlew sands [none really coloured] half a dozen whimbrels, half a dozen golden sands [one half coloured], a couple of avocets, a couple of male chestnut teal [a 'female' teal that appeared to be dead], the usual collection of pied oystercatchers, a lesser crested tern in with the caspians, cresteds and silver gulls, the usual number of red caps and stilts, a mangrove bittern, and a lone shank.

I would have thought that more of these birds would have scarpered north to breed by now. Are we seeing more birds overwintering these days?

the other comment I would make is that there were the usual waders with plumage not shown in the field guides. I keep forgetting that non-breeding lesser sands have far larger superciliums than shown in the guides, and that some have close to full white collars. I also noted that some of the red coloured stints had pale lines on their crowns similar to that of broad-billed sands.

As usual, there was the odd bird that had me wondering - at one point I took a pic of a couple of nearby (non-breeding plumaged) stints [you get closer to them than most other waders] - in the shot, a stint walking on the mud looks rather smaller, less bulky, has less of a blockhead, and has a shorter bill than the birds behind it. It has dark scapulars and distinctly dark primaries. Probably just a small red-neck but you never know ...

The joys of wader watching

Regards, Laurie.

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