Going dotty

[David Rees <>]

For those of you who would like to see the real  NZ Dotterel in action see my film - https://vimeo.com/81176496 

As Geoffrey states there are less than 2000 of them left,  mostly on the north coast of the North island with a separate population on Stewart island right down south.  Mind was filmed from a public footpath on Rangitoto island, an extinct 600 year old volcano a short ferry ride away from the CBD of Auckland.  Did not need a film crew to get this!!!

David

On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 10:29 AM, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:

I was recently involved in an issue about anxiety caused to protection groups by an international list insisting that the ‘Hooded Plover’ was really a ‘Hooded Dotterel’.  Now this morning local ABC radio had a segment about the outrage in New Zealand caused by Taylor Swift’s production crew taking 11 vehicles onto a beach inhabited by endangered ‘dotterels’.  Investigating this further I find the affair has received world-wide coverage with the BBC website devoting much space it. A photo has the text ‘The dotterel is endangered with something like 1,700 left in New Zealand’.   As it happens the BBC has used a photo of what the British like to call ‘The Dotterel’, being Eudromias morinellus – the Eurasian Dotterel [1 below].  At 2 below I show the figure from Buller’s Birds of New Zealand  of Charadrius obscurus.   This, I believe, is the genuine 1700-strong (or not so strong) New Zealand Dotterel or Red-breasted Plover, Swift-disturbed or otherwise.  Hooded and Red-breasted Plovers of the world unite.