Thank you Steve. This calls for a few comments.
1) These are records, not individual birds. (There certainly weren’t 25 Pec Sandpipers here in 2003, although there might have been 25 reports of a single bird. Similarly for the wood Sandpiper in 1994.)
2) The NSW reports probably reflect reports by Michael Lenz from L Bathurst etc (Surprised they didn’t go back before 1981) These are remarkably consistent for the Curlew Sandpiper up until 2000, after which there are 8 nil years. Those records appear to be cumulative (monthly) presence records, for example the ABN gives 102 Curlew Sandpipers at Lake Bathurst in October 1997.
3) I am interested in the relative proportion of ‘rarities’ as against the 3 species that are abundant in coastal SE Australia (RN Stint, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Curlew Sandpiper). You can’t get this from the Michael Lenz numbers as presented here (eg 5 records each of Sharpie and Pec Sand in 1989 gives no idea of relative numbers.) From what we know of the ACT wetlands we seem to get a few sharpies (less than 10 at once) each year. However I think the records will show that the proportion of rarer waders here (by number) is much higher than the proportion of rarer waders to the common 3 at somewhere like Werribee. Perhaps wader species migrating singly or in small numbers are more likely to turn up somewhere off the usual track than wader species migrating in large numbers.
4) As to this being an unusual year, well perhaps a combination of winds and the conditions being favourable at those local spots that get a predictably thorough scrutiny.
From: Wallaces [
Sent: Monday, 4 November 2013 7:52 PM
To: Canberra birds
Subject: [canberrabirds] An unusual year for sandpipers
More reports of Pectoral and Curlew Sandpiper from Kellys Swamp today (see http://www.eremaea.com/BirdlineRecentSightings.aspx?Birdline=11) prompted me to look at when these two species and the Wood Sandpiper have been recorded in the same year. Below is a summary of the records from the COG database. It shows that the three species have never been recorded in the same year in the ACT and only in one year (1995) in the rest of the COG area of interest. The records for 2013 are incomplete.
Steve
Number of records | Species | | |
State/Year ending 30 June | Curlew Sandpiper | Pectoral Sandpiper | Wood Sandpiper |
ACT | 6 | 25 | 11 |
1975 | 1 | | |
1993 | | | 1 |
1994 | | | 9 |
1995 | | | 1 |
2003 | | 25 | |
2005 | 3 | | |
2010 | 2 | | |
NSW | 138 | 35 | 3 |
1981 | 1 | | |
1982 | 3 | | |
1983 | 13 | | |
1984 | 7 | | |
1985 | 8 | | |
1986 | 9 | | |
1987 | 4 | | |
1988 | 11 | | |
1989 | 5 | 5 | |
1990 | 2 | | |
1991 | 7 | | 1 |
1992 | 8 | 3 | |
1993 | 6 | 3 | |
1994 | 13 | 4 | |
1995 | 13 | 3 | 1 |
1996 | 9 | 5 | |
1997 | 2 | 2 | |
1998 | 8 | 3 | |
1999 | 2 | | |
2000 | 2 | | |
2006 | 3 | 2 | |
2007 | 1 | 1 | |
2009 | 1 | | |
2013 | | 4 | 1 |
Grand Total | 144 | 60 | 14 |
