|
Hi Birders,
On Monday I saw what I thought was an immature Ruff
, a very brown bird, at the Ash Island Ponds. The bird was seen in the middle of
the day in poor light and heat haze and I did not see it fly but I was
convinced about what I saw. I was sure that the bill looked slightly
down-curved. Other people have subsequently claimed to have sen a Ruff at
the site.
On Thursday afternoon at the same location Ann
Lindsey found a bird, initially thought it was a Ruff but then in better light,
considered that it might have been a Lesser Yellow-legs, a bird that she had
recently seen in South America (not a bird considered by me at all). She
returned to the Ash Island ponds first thing this morning, saw the bird in
flight and in great viewing position. Saw that it had no wing bar, bright yellow
long legs, white rump, black barring on the base of the tail, dark straight
black bill. She rang me from Shortland and I returned to the site with Aaron
Davies.
In the better light ( and with a better telescope)
we saw this bird in flight (thanks to a Goshawk putting up the waders), saw the
white rump, saw that the wings are longer than the tail, that the brown only
goes down to the bottom of the breast and not onto the white belly, saw that
there were spotting on the back and the back was greyish brown, and could see
the white mark going from the bill to the eye ring and not beyond it. I think
that Ann Lindsey is right and this bird could be a Lesser Yellow-legs. We await
further confirmation. It is possible that there is both a Ruff & a Lesser
Yellow-legs at the Ash Island Ponds.
And oops, I pressed the wrong button last night
when confirming a meeting time with a colleague, and sent the message to
Birding-aus instead of the next person in my address book.. My
apologies.
|
