Hi Jill and Everyone else,
I made observations of a pair of Beach Stone-curlews nesting within the
Cairns Airport in 1999 and started writing a paper about it but other
priorities have taken preference since then. I will get back to it someday.
This particular pair of birds made a nest on bare salt laden soil
situated amongst grass and saltmarsh in a part of the airfield, which
had been cleared of mangroves three years previously and filled with
soil. The nest was a gravel scrape and unlined. This site location was
unusual as the nearest beach, where they normally nest, was approx 2 km
away. The first nesting attempt was noticed on 25th Sept.1999 when a
bird was seen sitting on a single egg. 20 days later a chick was seen
but it only lasted for 6 days before disappearing. The second nest was
scraped out 5m from the original one and an egg laid, 24 days after the
first chick had disappeared, on 17th November 1999. On the 19th December
1999 one of the adult birds was seen eating an egg sac 33 days after the
egg was laid and subsequently the fledgling was seen hiding under the
wing of one of the adults. Records were kept until January 28th 2000
when the 2 adults and the juvenile bird moved away from the nest site.
The presumed same adults and juvenile bird were seen together until
November 2000 both at Cairns Airport and on the Cairns Esplanade, when
the adults probably went off to nest again at a different site.
So there is hope that the birds will nest again, I will be interested to
know if they do..
The bird obviously realised the chick was dead and did not want to see
good protein go to waste, so ate it. This is not uncommon amongst birds
as far as I know.
Cheers,
Keith Fisher.
Jill Dening wrote:
Hi Everyone,
With the writer's permission I send you the email below, which I
received this morning. Whilst sad, it contains interesting Beach
Stone-Curlew behaviour observation, which will interest some
subscribers. If anyone has any experience or opinion which may add to
my understanding of this poorly-studied species, your contributions
will be gratefully received. (I do have HANZAB, which notes that we
don't know a lot about the species.) I expect the birds will try to
breed again, as it's still early in the season.
This nesting failure occurred last night on Bribie Island, SEQld, at
the Kakadu Beach artificial shorebird high tide roost which we built
in 2001/02. The observer, Michelle Marrington, has the priviledge of
living in a house overlooking the roost, and sits on her balcony with
her binos keeping us informed about the birds which come and go. She
knew practically to the hour when the egg was laid. The storm season
has arrived rather early this year. I believe it's the same pair which
had two breeding failures in the same location last summer.
Cheers,
Jill Dening
...................................
--
Keith & Lindsay Fisher
Kingfisher Park Birdwatchers Lodge
RN 6 Mt. Kooyong Road
Julatten QLD 4871
Ph : (07) 4094 1263
Fax : (07) 4094 1466
Web Site: www.birdwatchers.com.au
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