David,
Sorry about my misleading, lazy shorthand - I meant nothing more than that
they (ie. over 90% of the Short-tailed Shearwaters and all the Australasian
Gannets) were flying purposefully in a northward direction - though I have
to say it didn't look like a foraging flight. I suspect this had something
to do with the prevailing weather - cool, light rain, southeasterly winds.
There is the term 'reverse migration' that I've come across. From memory I
think it means this kind of phenomenon, but I've got nothing to hand to
check this. Maybe someone else?
Some people no doubt picked up on a misidentification in the list I sent
in. After checking HANZAB, it turns out the 'patchy' White-fronted Tern was
in fact a juvenile Common Tern - with extremely worn secondary coverts, and
only a faint bar on the secondary tips. I can only plead confusion due to
the complexity of 'Commic Tern' moults.
Rod
>Rod
>
>What do you mean by a "wrong way" migration? Surely birds don't have to
>fly in a particular direction at a given time of year. Enen on migration,
>time is undoubtably taken to forage etc. and this almost certainly entails
>a bit of cruising around, possibly even in the "wrong direction".
>
>David
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