birding-aus

Manly roost, some very nervous birds and little tern?

To: birding aus <>
Subject: Manly roost, some very nervous birds and little tern?
From: john hammond <>
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:32:54 +1030
Hi all... One of my favourite places to bird is the Manly high tde roost in 
Brisbane and at the moment the waders are there in good numbers. Went up there 
this afternoon and got a good look at black and bar tailed godwit, common 
greenshank, great knot,red knot, sharp tailed, terek and curlew sandpiper, red 
necked stint, eastern curlew, whimbrel, Ruddy turnstone and pacific golden 
plover. May have been some species i missed but i could not move around much as 
the birds seemed very nervous. I have always found them quite tolerant of my 
slow walk around the place but today it seemed they didnt approve and showed it 
by constantly taking to the wing, shuffling away and alarm calling. So much so 
i ended up backing off so as not to cause them undue stress. I was wondering if 
this behaviour had anything to do with the severe storm front building just 
outside Brisbane. Last but not least the terns. I found a small group of terns 
i have never seen before and since i still have a lot of tern species still to 
find i thought i might ask for some back up on the id. The birds were tiny and 
appeared to be about the same size, maybe a touch bigger than a stint. Their 
crowns were white with black streaks back to a black nape and a blotch in front 
of the eye. Pale grey over all with white under wing showing blackish primaries 
at rest. The bills were quite long for the size of the bird with maybe a yellow 
tinge at the base and they stood on stumpy yellowish legs. I had them pegged as 
little terns but feel free to shoot me down in flames if you must.  Happy 
birding...John
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