Kelly's Sunday at dusk

[Martin Butterfield <>]

My impression is that both BFD and RKD are pretty opportunistic in seizing on good food opportunities.  If they get a fairly good expanse of bare mud they will tend to turn up  in larger than usual numbers.  

When the Forbidden Pond (boo, hiss, shime shime) nearest Dairy Rd was drying out at some stage in the medium past I have a recollection of seeing about a dozen BFDs there.  Certainly the last time we visited Kellys there were about 20 RKD enjoying the very shallow waters.

Martin Butterfield

http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/

On 10 May 2018 at 11:43, Con Boekel <> wrote:

Philip, Geoffrey

An interesting discussion. When our wader species reach their breeding grounds they commonly disperse into pairs.

Maybe the B-f D's are doing what most waders do: varying their consorting behaviour according to the circumstances?

regards

Con

On 5/10/2018 11:03 AM, Philip Veerman wrote:

Thanks for your reply. It comes down a lot to the words used that in this case are there to give impressions, rather than to be completely precise. Fair point that my “very unusual” might overstate an impression. Maybe “perhaps not that unusual” doesn’t negate it either. The Black-fronted Dotterel maybe is our most common wader species and although many waders like to be in big, single or mixed species flocks, I believe this one usually occurs as singles or pairs along parts of river banks or small dams or swamps.

 

Philip

 

From: Michael Lenz [m("gmail.com","michael.lenz.birds");" target="_blank">mailto:michael.lenz.birds@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, 9 May, 2018 5:42 PM          To: Philip Veerman            Cc: Geoffrey Dabb; chatline
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Kelly's Sunday at dusk

 

Congregations of Black-fronted Dotterels perhaps not that unusual, for example 26 in one flock on 20 Aug 2017 at the Southern Morass (Lake Bathurst).

 

Michael Lenz

 

On 9 May 2018 at 16:59, Philip Veerman <> wrote:

I just checked in HANZAB about this. Prompted by that I thought that BfD is usually in pairs or small groups. (I can’t recall ever seeing such a group.)  HANZAB confirms this but does list some reports of congregations, Sufficiently few reports to demonstrate that such gatherings as in Geoffrey’s photo, are very unusual, though with precedent. Maybe there was a super hero convention in progress.

Philip

 From: Geoffrey Dabb [ Sent: Wednesday, 9 May, 2018 9:44 AM          To: m("canberrabirds.org.au","canberrabirds");" target="_blank">org.au       Subject: FW: [canberrabirds] Kelly's Sunday at dusk

I didn’t report it at the time but on 28 April (the fox day) there was a group of 16 plus BFDs in the shallows of the billabong area,  While I was there one of them was complaining about the shop where they got their Zorro costumes.

From: Philip Veerman [ Sent: Tuesday, 8 May 2018 10:51 PM        To: 'COG List' Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Kelly's Sunday at dusk

I was also there, for only about 20 minutes at dusk on Sunday 6 May, in Ardea hide. I noted, among the more usual: 4 Black-fronted Dotterels, 1 Spotted Crake and something like 100 Common Starlings coming in to roost in the reeds. I don’t recall seeing this reed roosting by Starlings there before, maybe due to not been there at dusk often, although it is hardly anything new.

Philip