I happened to be at JW at mid day today and watched very likely the same flock
of Black-fronted Dotterels, I decided to do a random trial at counting them.
Not that I was wanting to decide how many but was wanting to see how consistent
my counts of the same bunch of birds would be. Even though most were in view
and fairly close it was still hard. Each bird may stand still for a while then
run or fly. Sometimes hard to see without binoculars but when using them only a
small part of the mud are could be seen at one time. First count was 8 then I
started again. I did that about 12 times. Several times I got to 18, sometimes
20, highest count was 23. Still I don't know the real number. Then they mostly
flew towards the collection of sticks in the middle of the pond (there is not
much water) . Mostly in adult colours but at least 3 juveniles. Plus 2
Red-kneed Dotterels.
Also I noticed two car carrying trucks that had rather roughly loaded up what
might have been cars abandoned on Dairy Road. The cars looked mostly minimally
damaged to start with but on one truck two of the cars were plonked on top of 3
cars and held down with chains and the other truck 2 cars loaded on top of
another 2 cars.
Philip
-----Original Message-----From: Con Boekel Sent:
Friday, 8 March, 2019 7:37 PM To: canberrabirds chatline
Subject: Black-fronted Dotterel flock preening behaviour
Several COG members were attending the possible show of a Lewin's Rail in the
Cygnus Hide. No such luck. So we turned out attention to other birds. We
noticed a flock of Black-fronted Dotterels flying in just below the Cygnus
Hide. They then dispersed and fed individually. They then stopped feeding and
clustered closely together whereat they all began to preen. After doing this
for about 20-30 minutes they dispersed into their feeding distribution.
regards
Con
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