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Thanks to all helpful suggestions from COG
members on how to trace my "flagged" Pied Oystercatcher, recently sighted at
Shoalhaven Heads.
- Clive Minton has now reported that it was
flagged at Corner Inlet, 26 April 2008.
He was pleased to receive my report, and I
was thrilled to get his answer.
All assistance along the way, from my fellow
COG birders is gratefully acknowledged.
My full report (including Clive's full
answer) is now up on my blog, along with suggestions (links) for readers on
my Blog, on how any such flagged birds might easily be
reported.
As my blog is a general "Nature Blog" some
fairly basic info is provided for non-birders (eg, on
how to report the position of the flags, and which is the tarsus and
tibia).
On a personal note, as I grew up in a family
of Bird Banders, it is such a thrill to actually contribute to a successful
"record" such as this. I think of how many thousands of Yellow-faced Honeyeaters
my father Steve Wilson banded, in the hope that we would get some
long-distance report. Only after years of getting "boring re-traps" in the same
net, year after year, did it dawn on him that the real "gold" was there in front
of his eyes - the life history data. He then spent years poring over the
old records and churning out important "Life History" papers on the many
passerines he had banded, most notably Brown Thornbills, and
White-browed Scrubwrens. So, a 15 year old "scrubby" in the same net site
for most of its life came to mean as much to him as the "heroic" records of
migratory Godwits, etc.
But I am still thrilled to have played a
small part in this "report" for Clive's records for the Victorian Wader Study
Group.
Thanks to all concerned.
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