g'day all,
Last Monday I took Alan and Kate Hamer from Switzerland to the wide
bay on the west side of Lake Moondarra.
I am embarrassed to write that I did not give a particular
Pratincole some distance away, a second glance as it was only 3m
from an obvious Australian Pratincole. But Alan was checking out
every bird he saw in his S&D.
The long "tear drop" and darker back was obvious with the scope, and
when Alan showed me his S&D, I without my reading glasses misread
219 non-breeding as 220 and fell into the trap of stating it must be
a non-breeding Australian. Next day Alan politely asked me to
recheck and my snap wrong identification was obvious.
What I like about the overseas visitors is they take nothing for
granted and check every feather.
In spite of what the Field Guides may indicate, Oriental Pratincoles
are very rare visitors to the Isa.
Horton, Sunbird, V6, n3 states..
R = Migrant, one to five present 11 to 18 Nov 1954.
An influx of thousands in Dec 1967 disappeared after a storm in late
Dec.
Sam Caruthers wrote in Emu V68(3) 216/7 "Notes on an influx of O P
at Mount Isa."
I do not regularly refer to S&D because the numbering system and
that the illustrations are so all over the place. If it were
possible I would like the next edition to have the illustrations
better placed. The use of numbers is also out of flavour.
Like most users I draw lines to separate the various species or
linking the same species... but some pages finish up look like
spaghetti.
Regards, Bob Forsyth, Mount Isa, NW Qld.
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message
"unsubscribe birding-aus" (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
