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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