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Hi Bruce,
As you now know from Clive Minton the Stints you
saw were banded in July. The reason the birds have two flags is because since we
have international colour-flagging protocols a combination of two colours must
be used. Earlier, Australian birds only had one flag because other countries had
not come on board. The stints have been observed on numerous occasions since
flagging with no indication of irritation by the birds. I suggest that you may
have observed normal preening behaviour but with special attention being paid to
there new flags.
As far as the "novice" catching the birds for
flagging (your later email). I would like to point out that the catching
operation was carried out by Fred van Gessel, one of Australia's most
experienced bird banders with many years of experience with catching waders.
Fred has also been involved in flagging waders over the past ten
years.
It might interest you to know that studies of the
Endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper have been boosted since flagging of these
small birds commenced in Siberia by our Russian colleagues. We are now finding
out where these birds stop on migration and spend their overwintering period. We
now have to work hard with our international colleagues in order to protect
these areas. Some of their findings will be highlighted at the Australasian
Shorebird Conference being held in Canberra on 14/15 December (immediately after
the Australasian Ornithological Conference). We will also have specialists
talking about shorebird conservation from South Korea (including the recently
threatened tidal flats at Saemanguem which are important for the long term
survival of a large proportion of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper as well as many of
the migratory waders visiting Australia and most of our Great Knot). Taiwan,
Japan, Hong Kong, India, Philippines etc. I urge anyone interested in the
welfare of our migratory shorebirds (as well as non-migratory) attend this
conference and take part in the workshops to look at future research and
conservation throughout the migration range of "our" birds.
The AWSG web was down for a short while but was
operation fine last time I looked. Information about the conference is available
on this website: http://www.tasweb.com.au/awsg
Regards,
Phil Straw
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