From: "Kingfisher Park Birdwatchers Lodge" <>
Subject: Beach Stone-Curlew nesting failure, SEQld
Hi Keith,
A diffirent species I know however, I found a Bush Stone Curlew's nest on a
samphire flat, just above high tide and adjacent to mangroves. It was in a
northern Sydney suburb. The nearest house was about 50 meters away.
The interesting thing for me was there was no evidence of any attempt to
prepare a nest. The two eggs were on bare, sandy, moist mud with a few low
samphire bushes around. I have no idea if the eggs hatched.
Bruce Cox.
Hi Jill and Everyone else,
I made observations of a pair of Beach Stone-curlews nesting within the
Cairns Airport in 1999 and started writing a paper about it but other
priorities have taken preference since then. I will get back to it
someday.
This particular pair of birds made a nest on bare salt laden soil situated
amongst grass and saltmarsh in a part of the airfield, which had been
cleared of mangroves three years previously and filled with soil. The nest
was a gravel scrape and unlined. This site location was unusual as the
nearest beach, where they normally nest, was approx 2 km away. The first
nesting attempt was noticed on 25th Sept.1999 when a bird was seen sitting
on a single egg. 20 days later a chick was seen but it only lasted for 6
days before disappearing. The second nest was scraped out 5m from the
original one and an egg laid, 24 days after the first chick had
disappeared, on 17th November 1999. On the 19th December 1999 one of the
adult birds was seen eating an egg sac 33 days after the egg was laid and
subsequently the fledgling was seen hiding under the wing of one of the
adults. Records were kept until January 28th 2000 when the 2 adults and
the juvenile bird moved away from the nest site. The presumed same adults
and juvenile bird were seen together until November 2000 both at Cairns
Airport and on the Cairns Esplanade, when the adults probably went off to
nest again at a different site.
So there is hope that the birds will nest again, I will be interested to
know if they do..
The bird obviously realised the chick was dead and did not want to see
good protein go to waste, so ate it. This is not uncommon amongst birds as
far as I know.
Cheers,
Keith Fisher.
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