Shore Plovers at Plimmerton

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SueRose
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Re: Shore Plovers at Plimmerton

Postby SueRose » Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:46 am

Around 30 birds there this morning - a very high tide so they were quite scattered around the area. I observed a new behaviour - about half a dozen juveniles perching on the seawall !
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craigsteed
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Re: Shore Plovers at Plimmerton

Postby craigsteed » Sun Jun 19, 2011 1:16 pm

Popped down to Plimmerton this morning from Palmy and while the rain en route suggested photography was going to be pretty dicey and the high seas made me wonder if I'd even see the birds, fears were quickly allayed as I hopped out of the car by the fire station and immediately saw a few birds. The majority of the group were down the road a bit below the grassy patch. The rain held for half and hour or so and I was able to get some nice photos. Bumped into Sue who was doing a quick count and still seemed about 30 birds still present. Amazing to see.
shore plover resized.jpg
shore plover resized.jpg (97.45 KiB) Viewed 7751 times
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philbattley
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Re: Shore Plovers at Plimmerton

Postby philbattley » Mon Jun 20, 2011 9:45 am

Nice atmospheric shot, Craig!
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philbattley
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Re: Shore Plovers at Plimmerton

Postby philbattley » Wed Jun 22, 2011 1:28 pm

31 Shore Plovers at Plimmerton this morning; 1 Emperor Penguin and 30 people up the coast...

Phil
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ledzep
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Re: Shore Plovers at Plimmerton

Postby ledzep » Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:17 pm

I counted 26 Shore Plover this morning, not too worried about dogs walking past nearby despite the high tide.
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bsd1
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Re: Shore Plovers at Plimmerton

Postby bsd1 » Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:04 pm

Received this from the Plimmerton Residents Association this morning:

subject: Message from PCC Bill Inge Manager Parks & Reserves

Good afternoon

Terry Swadling of DOC has just phoned me with an update.

The experts have decided to relocate the Shore Plovers back to Mana Island next week. It will be dependant on wind and tide when during the week.

They are going to be taken back and probably kept in the aviary to help re-establish them on the island. They say catching birds is a specialist task and best left to the experts.

If this does not work, they will come back to ask us for help from the Council and the Community to help protect the birds when they are nesting.


So if you want to see the Shore Plovers you're running out of time. I guess time will tell if this is successful.

And to finish off, a few photos from yesterday.

Image
Shore Plover washing

Image
Evening flight

Image
Landing
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tim
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Re: Shore Plovers at Plimmerton

Postby tim » Wed Jul 06, 2011 4:15 pm

Thanks for that update Brendon, I guess we all knew it might have come to this.
It would have been intresting if they held off for a month or so as most of the flock should be heading back to the island to breed "If they do or if they already have built up areas around the fire station to nest"
When I was there last month there was early sights of partner pairing etc.
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robsphotography
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Re: Shore Plovers at Plimmerton

Postby robsphotography » Thu Jul 07, 2011 10:46 pm

Ian Southey wrote:Maybe the first step to community involvement might be to get an article in the local newspaper. I think it's already interesting enough and there seem to be some good pictures too.

Ian


I see there was a recent article about the shore plovers in the Dominion Post here:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5226066/Flock-of-rare-shorebird-stays-close-to-home

The Plimmerton community web site also has an article about them:

http://www.plimmerton.org.nz/shore-plover/

We visited Plimmerton recently at high tide and on a very windy and showery day. We counted at least 30 shore plovers on the beach. It was interesting to see how the shore plovers interacted with the seagulls and the heavy swell that kept reducing the amount of beach that they had to work with!

I have updated my website to show some new pictures of the shore plovers, including a page to show pictures of the birds in flight:

http://www.robsphotography.co.nz/Shore-Plover.html

http://www.robsphotography.co.nz/Shore-Plover-2.html

Here are two of the images from my site:

Image

Image

I have also put 2 short videos on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_CQEmn-Cbw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AvX1R-N_JE

Because of the very loud wind and sea noise, I have removed the sound from the above videos. We were impressed with how fast the birds moved around, it is certainly quite challenging to get good pictures of them.

Regards
Rob
Last edited by robsphotography on Thu Jul 14, 2011 10:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Michael Szabo
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Re: Shore Plovers at Plimmerton

Postby Michael Szabo » Sun Jul 10, 2011 3:53 pm

There were 32 shore plovers on the beach at Plimmerton late morning today, hunkered down in the face of a very strong, cold onshore wind!
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nomad_writer
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Re: Shore Plovers at Plimmerton

Postby nomad_writer » Thu Jul 14, 2011 5:04 pm

Is there any word on whether the shore plovers have been relocated back to Mana yet?

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