Marsh crake, Ahuriri Napier

[boneywhitefoot]

I have nearly 200 images left after a heavy sort through lol
there are adults and juvies in the mix.
The adults have a very solid grey/blue on their cheeks and aint so scruffy as them there youngins

[tim]

Hi Tony,
No the adults have the blue grey face which carries down the chest and they have much more rusty orange feathers.
There is quite a few blue face crakes that still have the white chest that must been starting to moult into adult plumage.

[boneywhitefoot]

that makes sense , just so long as we are not seeing them moving into a summer coat.
Im glad the birds are still around

[Alan Tennyson]

Just 1 marsh crake seen here tonight - it's wandering around in front of me right now - seems oblivious to my presence!

[boneywhitefoot]

I met Wayne Twydle at the birds after he kindly sent me a PDF of the area and he asked me to post a photo of a marsh crake so here it is

The fearsome creature from the black lagoon.
Marsh Crake.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/46846480@ ... ed-public/

[philbattley]

Marvellous shot! Am trying to organise my schedule to duck over from Palmy...

[boneywhitefoot]

Cheers Phill

[philbattley]

Made it there today, and managed 2 mins of Marsh Crake sightings from an hour and a half of waiting. Luckily the rain had largely finished by the time I started... Good to meet Adam Clarke there also. There was a Curlew Sandpiper on the south side, and the Wilson's Phalarope was in its usual place on the north side. There was also a flagged godwit there - "BEN". I assumed this would have been banded at Foxton as a juvenile a few years back but it turns out it was an adult from November 2014. We have records now of a few birds that return to Foxton, start moult and then move on, so it'd be great if Hawkes Bay locals can keep an eye on this bird through the summer to see if he's resident there. (And apologies to anyone who has already seen and reported this bird to me in case that's happened and I've forgotten!). One NZ Dotterel on the north side too, and a Dabchick on the main pond behind the scrape.

Cheers, Phil

[Oscar Thomas]

Do you think the pond where the crakes are is likely to dry up soon or last a few more weeks?

[Paul Gibson]

Phil, Great you got to see the Marsh Crake, I also waited on December 21 for one and a half hours before one appeared, but was fortunate in that he then stayed around for 20 minutes. In the meantime we had a constant show of spotless crakes, never seen so many, for so long, and out in the open. And then we had both species walking around together. What a display, and so unusual for both to be together, a photographers dream. This thread really should be called "Marsh & Spotless Crake, Ahuriri Napier".

A47I0829s.jpg (73.76 KiB) Viewed 2566 times