canberrabirds

Coastal birds

To: <>
Subject: Coastal birds
From: Julian Robinson <>
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:30:55 +1000
Thanks very much for informative replies, it does give me a better appreciation of degrees of variability in these tricky birds. Remarkably consistent replies too, nice to see converging info :) I can see why people get special kicks out of waders, it's a competition just to identify them let alone observing anything behaviorally interesting!

I meant to point out the bands on one of the Caspian Terns as Suzi mentioned, a yellow band on the right leg and a metal or grey band on the left. Is such limited info useful to anyone?

To respond to Philip's suggestion, the two Terns were definitely very differently coloured, one near white and the other dark grey. I saw them at many different angles and it was not a lighting effect.

Thanks again,

Julian


At 06:19 PM 27/08/2007, Lashko Susan wrote:
Well done, Julian - 3 out of 3!

The DB Plover is interesting - juveniles have a white collar like that so maybe this is a teenager coming into its first breeding season. They are a really tricky plover - I recall a couple of years ago Harvey Perkins and I finding a rather plain plover at Lake Wollumboola. After studying 4 different field guides we had with us, we thought the closest match was a non-breeding Oriental Plover, but we were very sceptical given that there are only 2 records for southern NSW. Harvey took lots of photos and it wasn't until he consulted HANZAB back in Canberra that we were happy that it was in fact a DB Plover, despite having no bands and no white throat. So they do vary a lot and not all plumage variations appear in standard field guides.

Waders are such fun!

Sue

For what it is worth, I agree with Mark. I can't offer any opinion as to why the Double-banded Plover has a white collar. How many of them do? Is this relevant to the birds that Elizabeth Compston reported on? As for the variation in colouring of the Caspian Tern. I'd suggest it could be related to a difference in the angle of viewing and the direction of the light of the 2 birds, rather than any camera effect or difference between the birds. (Wings of bird on left are in shade.)

Philip


From: Mark Clayton <> To: 'Julian Robinson' <> ; Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 4:05 PM Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Coastal birds


        Hi Julian,



A quick reply, A = Double-banded Plover coming in to breeding plumage before heading off to NZ where they breed, B= Red-capped Plover, possibly female as you suggest, and C= Caspian Tern possibly coming in to breeding plumage. Yes, they are a big tern and that beak can give a painful bite (from experience).



        Cheers,



        Mark




________________________________


        From: Julian Robinson 
Sent: Monday, 27 August 2007 2:52 PM To: Subject: [canberrabirds] Coastal birds



I found coastal birds very hard going on the w/end, my first real attempt to identify beach type birds. Yesterday I walked from our campsite at Termeil north along the beach to Tabourie. There weren't many sea birds apart from an impressively large Sea-eagle, but I did see a Fan-tail Cuckoo perched on top of the small sandhills, on low shrubby veg right on the beach. This surprised me since I thought they were tree-birds and not a beach-type bird.

But I had troubles with these plovers... there were 4 of them together, only on getting home did I realise they were two different species(!), and my guides have me foxed although I realise that migration and breeding variations in plumage make sea birds a bit of a challenge.

Bird A below seems to be a Double-banded Plover in intermediate plumage, but then I see that the guides point out as diagnostic that the Ringed Plovers are the only ones with the white collar going right round and over the back, as this one does. This one also doesn't have yellow legs so pretty sure it is not a RP, but it still has a clear all-round collar which contradicts the diagnostic point.

        Any thoughts?

Bird B below I'm guessing a female or non-breeding Red-capped Plover but don't know which.

        BBBBB


Bird C (Tabourie) seems like a Caspian Tern but again they were beside Silver Gulls and almost the same size which confused me a bit, and the variation in colouring shown is not reflected in any of my 5 guides. One was almost white and the other dark grey, not a trompe-de-camera (to borrow Roger's phrase) but actually there...



I would be interested in any comment on the variability of sea and beach birds and my confusions.

((These image totalled 75KB but will be increased by email formatting, I can't measure final size but it should be less than the current 100K limit.))

        Julian

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