Potential for NZ vagrants from North America?

[sav]

Hi all,

We have a long history of shorebird vagrants from North America, with Western Sandpiper being the latest star attraction. Also, records of Franklin's and Laughing Gull of course. The recent discussion about the red-billed Common Tern, and a long-held belief that our Northern Shoveler and Northern Pintail records are from the Americas rather than Asia has got me thinking about other birds that we might need to look out for.

Brent has recently been to Hawaii, and his eBird report has some really interesting (at least to my mind!) things. North American ducks Winter in Hawaii in small(-ish) numbers, and Hawaii is about halfway to NZ from the West Coast of USA - still a really long way, but......

Brent saw 71 Northern Shoveler and 6 Northern Pintail there - more or less mirroring the proportions of NZ records (?). Plus 8 Laughing Gulls. He also had 8 American Widgeon (and a European Widgeon) and that is something that I had never considered occurring here.

Add single Green-winged Teal, and single Ring-necked Duck, and (the most interesting) 2 Lesser Scaup. Lesser Scaup is at least an annual visitor to Hawaii in small numbers, but what intrigues me is how similar a female/immature Lesser Scaup is to a female/immature New Zealand Scaup.

Might be time to put that species on the radar!

Any thoughts?

Cheers

[Jan]

Well the godwits make it here from somewhere over Hawaii, every year......so who knows what others could do the same, and they can rest on water as well.

[andrewcrossland]

It interesting looking through Pacific regional fieldguides to see what the possibilities for North American vagrants to NZ might be....
six species that have made it to the islands north of us must be potential contenders for reaching NZ eventually?
American Wigeon
Greater Yellowlegs
Spotted Sandpiper
Long-billed Dowitcher
Short-billed Dowitcher
Ring-billed Gull