g'day all'
I forwarded Jill Denning's enquiry to Lyn Battle a birdo and co-owner of the
Sweers Island
Resort in the Gulf of Carpentaria, 30km north of Burketown, NW Qld.
Last year I had 3 of this species follow me down the beach as I sweated
identifying the
shorebirds.
Lyn's comprehensive reply is ....
".....
Hi Bob -
Thanks for passing on Beach Curlew query -
Yes, they do call - I've often heard them "warn off" visitors to their patch of
beach.
They will actually come across the rock platform to "chase" intruders - coming
very close,
3-4 m and making a call like a clucky hen, almost, but longer "syllables" (?).
This would be at any time of the daylight hours.
At night, they fly from beach to beach across the island and call out with a
higher
pitched call like a whistling duck, almost (but we've seen them and it's
definitely beach
curlew) - a rather mournful "aieee, aieee, aieee" - repeated quickly. This
"voice" is a
bit more like the bush stone curlew except not the same call pattern.
There is a pair who live just down towards the fishtraps from the resort
(McDonald Point)
and I regularly walk/run there and if it's early in the morning, they are often
still "in
bed" as I go by, but emerge from the mangroves (which are way behind the beach
dune) as I
return - one will run, calling, out over the rock platform, and appears to
"call" the
others (there were 3 for 2 yrs - don't know if this was their juvenile).
Once, on that tiny patch of beach up the north end, where there is another
resident pair -
one kept trying to "chase me off his beach" and I was (after a snorkel - it's a
good spot
for fish-watching) - lying on the beach reading a book - eventually the bird
accepted my
presence and lay down beside me! About 3m away! It was great!
Re: the mention of their calling being "tide-driven" - we have only one tide a
day in the
Gulf so I don't think so - not here anyway.
Hope this is useful....."
Readers of BOCA's "The Bird Observer may remember reading in the June 2001
edition Lyn's 2
page report of their tame (breeding) Bush Stone-Curlews. That report advised
they had at
least 4 pair of Beach S-c plus a dozen Bush S-c
Some of their Australian Bustards also wander at will around the resort
buildings.
Regards, Bob Forsyth, Mount Isa, NW Qld.
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