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Hi Birdsers,
There was a SIPO at The Entrance
today, it was first seen about 8.30 hrs on an exposed sand flat at low tide in
The Entrance channel close to Karagi Point where I was checking out the Little
Tern colony. For about 20 minutes I was about 30-50m distance away from the bird
as it piped away at a pair of adult Pied Oystercatchers accompanied by two
immature birds. The SIPO was not interested in the two immature birds with their
orange-yellow bills with black tips and greyish legs, but kept following the two
adults, hassling them as if were. This was the first time for some weeks that I
had seen the Pied Oystercatchers in the inlet because they go elsewhere to
breed, so presumably this was the first time back with the kids!
It was immediately apparent that the
5th bird was different because its legs were one third the length of the other
birds and as they went back and forward over the sand flat, it was easy to make
the comparison. Even though I could see the bird well through my Swarovski
8.5x42 binoculars and my Kowa Spotting Scope it was not apparent that the bill
of the SIPO was longer than the two adult Pied Oystercatchers although the
SIPO's bill appeared thinner and it was longer than the bills of the two
immature birds. The SIPO was an adult bird with red legs and red bill and it had
less area of white on the side of the neck above the shoulder of the wing, than
all of the other Pied Oystercatchers. It was not apparent that the black
extended down the throat to a lesser degree than with the OZPO but that was not
a feature that I was aware until I went home to check the field guide.They
eventually all flew together and I could see that the white on the SIPO went
further up its back than the other birds but they then all tumbled in the air
with each other and it was not possible to say which bird was which nor was it
possible to determine whether the white wing bars were different on one compared
to the others. The birds disappeared from view. I continued to complete the
monitoring of the Little Terns and then returned home.
I returned about 4 pm in the
afternoon and it took some time to locate any oystercatchers, but eventually
three were found feeding and roosting on an island in the middle of the inlet
used mostly by Pelicans and Pied Cormorants. Eventually I could determine that
these birds were two immature Pied Oystercatchers with one adult . I traveled
around the Entrance for some time but could not find the other two birds. This
is not surprising as it is peak human visitor period for The Entrance and there
are people in boats and fisherpersons everywhere you look, tramping over all the
sandbars and small islands. I will return tomorrow morning to check out the
Oystercatchers again.
Alan
Morris
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