At 16:58 01/12/2001 +1100, jilldening wrote:
2.
The northern Australian population, whose breeding stronghold is the Gulf
of Carpentaria and eastern Cape York, Qld. This population breeds during
autumn-winter, and its dispersal behaviour, if at all, is not
understood. I guess that's because of its remoteness. There needs to be
some colour flagging done at the nests.
3.
The northern hemisphere population, which breeds in places like Japan and
China during the Australian winter (northern hemisphere summer), and which
migrates to Australia for the Australian summer. In Aust they can be
spread all along the east and south-east coast, as well as west into north
Western Australia. They arrive here around Sept/October and leave in
April/May. They gather in flocks of up to several thousand in some
places, Caloundra being one of their many favoured locations. The Japanese
laugh at our concern about the Little Tern, because it is so abundant in Japan.
Little Tern does breed along the Kimberley coast and islands of WA. I
don't think that they were found breeding until a few years ago, but with
more people visiting this area more records are being found. George Swann
from Broome knows a lot about this.
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