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Banding News From the North-West


Biodiversity 10-10-2009

We all know that the diversity of shorebirds and terns in Roebuck Bay is high and this catch was a good example. Only 92 birds caught but 12 species 10 shorebirds and 2 terns.

 A small team to set the net at 2 Dog so plenty of walking back and forth with gear and we set up the cages before the catch as well. This is something Clive has shown me the benefits of and after initially being concerned it would keep birds off the beach I am warming to this method. It gives the birds less time in the net and that is always a good thing. 

We had a car driving straight towards the net 2 hours before high tide but quick work from Eduardo averted a disaster. We still hope for a marine park so this ridiculous state of affairs can be addressed. The car sent 1500 birds off and away from the beach but left us 500 to work with and a perfect twinkle from Helen got 30 godwit in front of the net but as I waited for more birds to walk in those birds promptly walked out! So another fine twinkle put 200 or so birds in front but many in danger so I was edgy as the birds were walking out of danger, which was good, but out of the net as well, which was bad!

However once it was safe we fired as I was concerned if we lost this flock from the beach we might not get them back and as they say a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush (or on the beach).
The small team worked very well and the birds were in the cages and under shade in no time.

I only had 8 people who had cannon netted before but the new-comers were brilliant and we got through the birds in good time. Thankfully Alice turned up and bled the colour-banded birds while a young British couple were introduced to things pretty promptly when they wandered innocently down to see what was going on. “Hi would you like to run those birds and would you like to be bleeding assistant thank you very much!”

The oldest retrap was a Greater Sand Plover first banded on 02/01/2001 that is now at least 11 years old. 4 of the 5 Ruddy Turnstone retraps were from the same catch 27/11/2007.

Thanks to all for a great day.

Chris Hassell

10/10/2009

   

AGE IN YEARS

 

SPECIES

NEW 

RETRAP

1st

2nd

2+

3rd+

TOTAL

Bar-tailed Godwit

17

1

0

7

0

11

18

Caspian Tern

1

0

0

0

1

0

1

Curlew Sandpiper

2

0

0

1

0

1

2

Eastern Curlew

1

0

0

0

0

1

1

Greater Sand Plover

18

8

1

5

0

20

26

Great Knot

5

0

1

3

0

1

5

Lesser Sand Plover

1

1

0

1

0

1

2

Little Tern

14

0

0

0

14

0

14

Red Knot

1

0

0

0

0

1

1

Red-necked Stint

0

1

0

0

0

1

1

Ruddy Turnstone

9

5

1

1

0

12

14

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper

7

0

0

2

1

4

7

TOTALS

76

16

3

20

16

53

92

 

MATES 17/10/2009

A brief report on a big catch.

 A small team again this week but with 6 BBO course participants joining an experienced group of locals we managed to deal well with a huge catch. Most processing teams consisted of 2 people, one scribe and one other!

 We got a fantastic swag of re-traps (179) and controls (6) out of a catch of 531 and this of course gave us some old birds. 5 Great Knot controls were from Chongming Dongtan, the banding site on an Island in the mouth of the Yangtze River and one Curlew Sandpiper was from the Russian Arctic (but from where exactly) I do not know yet. 

 A selection of some older birds.

SPECIES

AGE NOW

Curlew Sandpiper

10, 17, 16, 8, 

Greater Sand Plover

9, 11+,11+, 10+, 9, 16,  

Great Knot

13+, 11+, 10+, 11+, 11+, 14+, 11+, 12, 12+, 12+, 11+, 10+, 12+, 16+, 14+, 11+, 

Grey-tailed Tattler

10+, 

Red Knot

15, 12+, 12+, 

 We all know that shorebirds exhibit a high degree of site fidelity and therefore often hang out with the same birds, but even knowing that, the 2 Red Knot we processed on Saturday were pretty special and obviously the best of mates. They were banded consecutively 052-00224 and 5 on 21/11/1999 and then re-trapped in the same catch and taken out of the same compartment of a keeping cage on 17/10/2009.

Dear All

The information on the Russian banded Curlew Sandpiper.

Many thanks to Mikhail Soloviev and Pavel Tomkovich for the email below.

 thank you for these fantastic news. A female with metal ring KS10121 was ringed by me on the nest on 28.06.2005 on the central Taimyr (74°09'N, 99°34 'E). We had an agreement then that birds migrating along East Asian-Australasian Flyway would have a white flag on left tibia and color rings on tarsi. This bird actually got green and blue rings on left tarsus, but they apparently were gone. In 2004 we had a Curlew Sandpiper with the Polish ring at this site, hence, your recovery clearly indicates that birds from Central Taimyr may migrate to both directions - east and west.

Cheers

Chris

See below for full catch details.

17/10/2009

 

 

 

AGE IN YEARS

 

SPECIES

NEW 

RETRAP

CONTROL

1st

2nd

3rd+

TOTAL

Bar-tailed Godwit

3

0

 

0

1

2

3

Black-tailed Godwit

20

0

 

1

4

15

20

Curlew Sandpiper

48

18

1

2

8

49

57

Greater Sand Plover

47

51

 

8

20

70

98

Great Knot

130

82

5

2

21

194

217

Grey-tailed Tattler

25

10

 

2

6

27

35

Lesser Sand Plover

0

2

 

0

0

2

2

Red Knot

59

12

 

5

9

57

71

Red-necked Stint

9

2

 

1

1

9

11

Ruddy Turnstone

3

1

 

1

 

3

4

Sanderling

2

0

 

2

0

0

2

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper

4

0

 

0

0

4

4

Terek Sandpiper

6

1

 

1

1

5

7

TOTALS

356

179

6

25

71

437

531

 
Thanks to all for a huge effort.

Chris Hassell

 

 

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