On Sunday 18 Feb, Hunter BOC did a survey of Port Stephens (which is
located approx 60km N of Newcastle NSW). The main purpose was to count
the waders present but we recorded all waterbirds while we are at it.
This is the 4th year of such a survey, which is done in collaboration
with the local NPWS office. We had 6 teams go out in boats, which were
arranged and skippered by NPWS, and the teams simultaneously surveyed
various sub-sections of Port Stephens at high tide. We have used the
same methodology in all 4 years of surveying.
The total for the waders was 1,750 birds, and also 1,988 other
waterbirds were present. Both of these counts are fairly consistent
with 2 of the previous years (in the other year, the counts for
everything were down by about 50-70%). Details were:
Black-tailed Godwit 1
Bar-tailed Godwit 809
Whimbrel 215
Eastern Curlew 329
Common Greenshank 13
Terek Sandpiper 6
Grey-tailed Tattler 100
Ruddy Turnstone 5
Red-necked Stint 59
Pied Oystercatcher 108
Sooty Oystercatcher 11
Red-capped Plover 41
Lesser Sand Plover 3
Masked Lapwing 50
Black Swan 418
Aust. Wood Duck 41
Pacific Black Duck 35
Grey Teal 10
Chestnut Teal 25
Little Penguin 1
Darter 5
Little Pied Cormorant 97
Pied Cormorant 221
Little Black Cormorant 17
Great Cormorant 55
Australian Pelican 156
White-faced Heron 44
Little Egret 2
Great Egret 9
Striated Heron 11
Nankeen Night Heron 8
Australian White Ibis 192
Royal Spoonbill 1
Arctic Jaeger 1
Silver Gull 449
Gull-billed Tern 19
Caspian Tern 1
Crested Tern 161
Common Tern 5
Little Tern 4
>From what I understand about population estimates, the Pied
Oystercatchers were present at 1% of the world population for the
species and Eastern Curlew at fractionally under 1%, and the Whimbrel
numbers represent about 2% of the Australian migrating population.
Alan
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