I went to Avalon Beach (VIC, not the one in Sydney!!) today to have a look
at the fantastic waders people have been seeing there - and hopefully some
crakes and rails as well. There have been photographs of Long-Toed Stint,
Broad-billed Sandpiper and Grey-tailed Tattler, along with lots of waders
colouring up into breeding plumege.
Well, apart from c. 260 Banded Stilts, there were more fisherman / boat
owners than waders! I saw around a dozen RN Stints, a couple of sharpies,
some Red-cap Plovers, including very young young, and not much else. I did
see something that may have been the Long-toed Stint but it flushed just as
I got the bins onto it and flew across the pond. I couldn't relocate it. I
don't really think it was a LTS. None of the birds I saw were even close to
breeding plumage, and my opinion is that most of the waders left with the
full moon over the last couple of nights.
The only thing that brought a half-hearted smile was a Striated Fieldwren
close to the road on the way home :-(
Russell Woodford
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