Hi all,
As some people emailed me after my last twitchathon email to the
group saying they would like to hear more about NZ birds, I thought I
would email through a few recent sightings.
Kaipara Harbour, north of Auckland, is reknowned for its good waders,
but enormous size. However, in late October a sanderling was seen on
several parts of the estuary on different occasions, and a greater
and a lesser sand plover were also seen around the same time, by
Gwenda Pulham and others. Also a report of 6 gull-billed tern
recently.
The weekend of the 17/18 Nov saw many areas in NZ conduct the summer
wader census. During this weekend a common sandpiper and a great
knot were seen at the Mangere sewage ponds in Auckland. This is a
great area for birds, with huge expanses of water and muddy margins,
but the access is obviously difficult to such a place. Neither of
the birds were seen through the week, but on 24/11 I managed to see
the common sand with one of the original finders, Gwenda Pulham, as
well as David Lawrie and Ray Clough. Nice little wader, and
definately a common and not a spotted sand - a NZ tick for me.
Moving to the South Island, Lake Ellesmere, near Christchurch, is
also known for good waders, but also again its huge size. However,
last summer they received a few nice waders inclduing red-necked
phalarop, ruff and hudsonian godwit. On 16/1 Tony Crocker saw an
unusual stint (appeared to have very pale legs and very dark
plumage), which could be the same one that has been present for a
couple of years now. Will have to see what develops...
Miranda, just east of Auckland, is also reknowned as a great spot to
see waders, as the high tide roost is predicatable and huge numbers
of godwit and knot congregate at high tide. On 19/11 a ruff was seen
here, and continued to be seen right through till 23/11 late morning
early avo. I arrived there at 6:00pm and of course it had
disappeared. Checked the area every day over the weekend, but no
ruff to be seen, although the other sandpipers it was with were also
missing - a single curlew, pectoral and several sharp-tailed sands.
Keith Woodley, who runs the Miranda Shorebird Centre, suspects that
due to the recent rain they may have moved off into the marshy
paddocks surrounding the area - hopefully they turn up again!! Did,
however, over the three days I visited (23-25/11) see 2 terek sand,
1 sharp-tailed sand, 5 red-necked stint, 4 little tern, wrybill, New
Zealand dotterel and had awesome views of a banded (buff-banded) rail.
And finally, Ian 'Sav' Saville from Feilding called me on Sunday
evening to tell me that he was just watching a great knot (possibly
the same one from Managere above??) at the Manawatu Estuary. This
smallish estuary is reknowned in NZ for its excellent wader records.
The high tide roost is usually a small spit and you can sit and wait
as the birds accumulate and stand within 40-50m of you, sometimes
closer. This makes finding strange waders much easier, and the
moderate numbers of godwit (c.400) and knot (c.200) make it a bit
easier than some of the larger estuaries. Anyway, Sav had seen the
bird about 6:30pm on Sun, I was there at 7:20am on Mon, but alas
couldn't find the bird - my second attempt to twitch a great knot at
the Manawatu and foiled again!! A check of the birds at high tide
that evening, also revealed no great knot - I did however get to see
Sav's excellent video footage of the bird - damn!! The tides weren't
all that high and so this weekend they will be a lot bigger and
should push all of the waders out of small muddy areas to congregate
at the main roost.
So that's about it for a while, hope this makes interesting reading
to all you wader-philes.
Happy birding,
Brent Stephenson
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
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