A hearty well done to those responders (6 of 10) who, without
more information, recognized an Oriental Plover. There’s enough there
for a spare Twitchathon team. Key features are the cheek patch and long yellow
legs. I thought that was an interesting little test, because it was not an
easy one at first. We found 2 last Wednesday on the Oolambeyan trip, south of
the park, about 50 km SSE of Hay. They were feeding on ‘hoppers in a
paddock along with 50+ Banded Lapwing and an A Pratincole. We picked them up
when we stopped to watch the lapwings. I wasn’t carrying a field guide
but Mike Grigg had one, and it got some rapid thumbing, I can tell you.
In the pic I showed I increased the contrast a little to
bring up the features, and Sue Lashko pointed out that one would expect that
cheek patch to be more of a smudge. This is a more natural shot. I have a
poorer shot showing the buff-grey on the chest. I might have some useful video
as well - although I was getting blown about a bit by the wind.
The interesting thing about this ob is that it is outside
the Australian range of this trans-equatorial migrant as given in the usual guides.
The only record for the 4 years of the latest BA Atlas in NSW, Vic or SA is a
single record for what looks to be about Yamba on the coast; indeed, there
were no sightings at all anywhere south of 30°S.
