|
Allan Benson asked:
"Is anybody willing to speculate on the sex and the race of the Kentish
Plover at Old Bar? Niven McCrie's bird at Darwin in November 1988 was considered
to be of the race dealbatus (Japan, E China) and comparing the picture on the
BARC Website and Hayman it looked like a adult male in breeding
plumage.
The Old Bar bird is certainly a non-breeding adult
or a juvenile and my guess is a juvenile based only on the scruffiness of the
bird particularly around the supercilium. However, which race. The bird at
Old Bar more closely resembled the nominate race (N Africa, W Europe to Korea)
in the overall colour of the bird according to Hayman but maybe the non breeding
dealbatus is not as dark as shown in Hayman. Does anybody have an
opinion???
Who is writing up the BARC
submission??".
Well I reckon the Old Bar bird
is also a dealbatus, a female. It is very like fig. j, plate 35 in
Hayman et al. Shorebirds, an adult female in breeding plumage, in
that it has a large, dark, ear-covert patch, although it has no rufous on the
hindcrown, the black areas are not so intense, more diffuse, and the
lores are paler. The legs are as fig. l. It is not a juvenile, might be a
1st winter bird, but I suspect an adult moulting from non-breeding.
It doesn't matter who or how
many people make a BARC submission. It is of course imperative that someone
does. Anyone putting this on an Atlas form might get a request for a URRF. This
should then automatically go to BARC. It is of course preferable that the
persons intending to publish make a BARC submission and this should be the
finders, Phil Straw and Chris Herbert as, most impressively, they correctly
identified their discovery. I'm told that Chris is an Atlasser so will
presumably make a submission to accompany and justify the entry on his Atlas
form. Apparently he has some photographs, important additional documentation. If
he hasn't, I should have some which he (they) are welcome to
use.
One way to avoid the cost and
time of providing photographic reproductions, (I've just spent $50.00 on my
Ringed Plover submission!), having to write a detailed description,
research the literature and provide the diagnosis to justify the identification,
is not to put it on an Atlas form! In any case, before me along with Richard
Baxter who directed me to the bird, was Anne Lindsey, the local RO. That
saves me a lot of work.
I hope that this doesn't make
me undisciplined or lazy, its just that I have a huge backlog of these
things to do.
Mike Carter
30 Canadian Bay Road
Mt
Eliza Vic 3930
03 9787 7136
| 