Out of Area - Bar-shouldered Dove at South Durras

[Harvey Perkins via Canberrabirds <>]

Like a number of other pigeons, and other birds, Bar-shouldered Doves appear to be slowly working their way south down the coast. I have recorded Bar-shouldered Doves over several years on Montague Island (off Narooma) and also at the Coila estuary just north of Tuross Heads. Because I don't have photos of these, they haven''t made it onto iNaturalist or similar recording platforms, but I'm very surprised they don't show up somewhere, from other's sightings. And I'm sure Peter Fullagar would have them listed on several of his eBird lists for Montagu Island. They are definitely in Eurobodalla, and spreading. 

Harvey

On Mon, 13 Dec 2021 at 09:17, Rods Gardening <> wrote:

This may be of interest to folks travelling to the coast over Christmas.
While staying at Lakesea Caravan Park last week my wife heard the call of “that bird from up north” so I went to investigate and soon heard the call, and then saw, a Bar-shouldered Dove, not listed in the birds of Eurobodalla. I mentioned this to a friend also staying in the park who put me in touch with a former colleague Ian Mason. Ian confirmed that there were no records of the species in the Eurobodalla region. He did, however, admit he thought he had heard one during a recent visit to the area but was only able to see Spotted Doves at the time - and perhaps understandably doubted my sighting! And suggested I get a phot as proof!  Fat chance of that…. Now, from several trips up north I am very familiar with both the bird itself and it’s soothing call, so I 100% KNOW I saw it! Perhaps there will be some keen birders in the Durras area over the coming weeks who will be on the lookout and able to collaborate my sighting.

Also of interest were large flocks(up to 50 birds) of Topknot Pigeons, sighted in the tall trees on the North Durras side of the lake, and feeding in the heathland between the caravan park and the beach. And a couple of weeks ago I saw 12 Sooty Oystercatchers on the beach south of Moruya Heads, 6 of which were hopping about on one leg. I have never seen that number of these together before nor seen them behave that way.
Cheers
Rod

Sent from my iPad
--
This is the email announcement and discussion list of the Canberra Ornithologists Group.
Emails posted to the list that exceed 2 MB (2,000 kB) in size, including attachments, will be rejected.
All emails distributed via the list are archived at http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/html/canberrabirds. It is a condition of list membership that you agree to your contributions being archived.

Canberrabirds mailing list

https://lists.canberrabirds.org.au/mailman/listinfo/canberrabirds

ATT00001.txt
Description: ATT00001.txt