birding-aus

American Golden Plover update 18/3/09

To: "David Stowe" <>, "Birding Aus" <>
Subject: American Golden Plover update 18/3/09
From: "Simon Blanchflower" <>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:13:34 +1100
David, excellent photo's of the primary projection. A key feature and often argued as a diagnostic feature is not only absolute wing lenght and number of exposed primaries - the spacing of primary tips is also important and your photo captures this perfectly......

In addition to the number of exposed primaries, I would argue that the primary spacing of primary tips 9 and 10 is clearly well spaced which is a well noted feature of dominica relative to fulva - in fulva the spacing of these feathers is much less clear and less measurable in the field - this is clearly measurable and significant in this bird (this is also covered in the Johnson/Johnson paper).

Other features discussed on this forum also stack up well. I can't get there 'till Saturday morning on a falling tide - hope it hangs around - I think most Sydney birders would kick themselves for not listening to Tung Pin earlier (I think high tide on Saturday is 5:16am - the problem with the next high tide at 6:15pm is disturbance)!

Cheers
Simon.




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