Alex raises an interesting point. Most animals when legless tend to lie
down until they feel better. Perhaps the bird in question was having a
quiet snooze but propping itself up with its bill to minimise hail damage
in the event of the inevitable thunder storms attracted to the metal on its
banded legs (clearly not visible in this case). Being a curlew sandpiper,
the bill is bent and probably would look like a broken leg.
Kym has clearly missed the fact that the maniac banders also put flags on
the bird's bills so that they cannot hide the fact that they have been
banded on their missing legs.
Waders frequently feed by swimming rather than wading at which time I
suppose they should be called swimmers. Legs therefore seem completely
uneccessary although technically swimming legless waders should then be
termed floaters. It would be very dificult to distinguish between floaters
and waders in deep water. Clearly one should not look for legless floaters
standing on the beach unless they are asleep on their tummies. Since there
is a lot of deep water (even in times of drought) I feel certain that this
accounts for the numerical discrepanices alluded to by Kym.
Dr P.J. Milburn
Biomolecular Resource Facility
Australian National University
GPO Box 334
Canberra
ACT 0200
+61 2 6125 4173 'Phone
+61 2 6125 4326 FAX
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
|
