Given that many BAussers may not have seen a Buff-breasted Sandpiper
and may not be able to get to see the Bundy Buffy, I've put together a
few impressions I got of the bird yesterday.
The text in P&K starts by saying that BBS are "about the same size as
s Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, but more plover-like". My impression of the
BBS was that it was more like an elongated stint than a Sharpie - it
had a much smaller diameter than a sharpie would have.
One of the first things that jumps out at you are the proportionately
thick yellow legs. As is the case with Red-capped Plovers [one of
the other birds in the vicinity] it appears to be proportionately
longer legged than a Red-necked Stint.
You also notice the buffy neck and chest. However the intensity and
direction of the light will affect the apparent intensity of the
"buffyness". In the scope or in the photos, the dark eye is
accentuated the pale eye ring.
Compared to a RNS, it appears to have a longer neck and its neck
appears to be extended when it is walking about. (The BBS was on the
move for most of the two hours I spent on it - I didn't see it
roosting, so I can't say whether it hunches up like a RNS when it is
loafing). Partly because it has a longer neck, it appears to have a
proportionately smaller head than an RNS. Its head-shape around the
bill is also a bit "warped". Compared to a RNS, it's bill appears to
be longer and finer.
Compared to the description of an Upland Sandpiper (another rare long-
necked yellow-legged vagrant), it is relatively smaller, its primaries
are about level with its tail and it has a pale underwing.
It didn't maintain the same basic posture all the time, but when
moving, its body was often in a horizontal plane - with its bill not
far above the line of its tail. While it was feeding on the move, it
didn't have the sewing machine cadence that you often see with RNS.
It fed both on the muddy shore and in the water.
It was doing its own thing and not particularly associating with any
of the other waders. It did fly a short distance after it bumped into
a RCP. I suspect it quite liked the shoreline where we were watching
it, because it happily moved up and back again a couple of times. It
didn't seem to be bothered by our presence [it was aware of us but
didn't seem to change its behaviour] at a distance of ~ 20 metres. I
suspect that when it popped up for a high flight, it may have been
stretching its wings. Chris tells me that it was seen again at 3 pm.
Finally, a comment on the distribution map in P&K (which in my older
edition has shading in a strip from Sydney to Adelaide and down the
east coast of Tasmania). There have been relatively few recognised
sightings in Australia - so there is very little knowledge of where
these birds [which normally shuttle up and down the Americas] actually
go when they end up in Australia. The chances are that the birds are
seen when they turn up in an area where the most of birders live. For
example, the first accepted sighting was in Altona in the early
sixties. Birds like Buffy are possibly just as likely to turn up
anywhere else in Australia - that has the right sort of shore
conditions - as they are to turn up in the areas marked on the
distribution maps.
The bottom line is that you shouldn't rule out a vagrant based on a
distribution map because the state of knowledge about these birds in
Australia may be based on a very small number of sightings.
Once again, I would like to thank Chris for his help in finding the
bird and to the birders who kindly invited David and myself to look in
their scopes the moment we arrived at their location. Chris will have
the final count of the number of twitchers who turned up yesterday.
People were coming and going while I was there - I think the maximum
number at any one time may have been 14.
I don't often run into large groups of birders like that [the
exceptions are tour groups, wader study groups and pelagic
boatloads]. I was wondering what the appropriate collective noun is
for a group of twitchers that forms in the vicinity of a rarite -
perhaps in a similar manner to the way a flock of seabirds forms
around a school of bait fish. Any suggestions?
Regards, Laurie.
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