Ellesmere 2022-2023

[GrahameNZ]

Slightly OT
Canty birders have a look at this post
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11989
Te Waihora bird survey 2023
Who knows what we will find

[Adam C]

Full list of suspects this evening.

3 Sharpies, 3 Peccs, 9 Ruddy TS, 27 RN Stint, Long-Toed Stint etc but also noted this colorfully banded, Banded Dotterel. Maybe of use to somebody.

[rowey]

Hi all.

FYI. Ran down to The spit tip last Friday night before the Southerly came through. Only real birds of note were 6 Wrybills and 1 Pectoral Sandpiper. Approx 250 Bandies and still no sign of any BTGodwits.

Kieran

[andrewcrossland]

Hi folks, I lead a team of CCC rangers out to Jarvis Rd and Clark’s today in overcast but largely calm conditions.
Loads of birds including easily 1000 banded dotterels and many hundreds of pied stilts
64 PG Plover
6 sharp-tailed sandpiper
1 Pectoral sandpiper
1 Marsh Sandpiper
14 red necked stint
At least 17 turnstone
30+ Wrybill
est. 1000+ Banded Dotterel
930 Pied Stilt (counted)

Also - on Monday 30 Jan) there was an unusual congregation of c150 gannet in groups rafting on the sea off the sand mine beach access, part way along kaitorete spit. Don Geddes was already watching them before I got there and also sighted 2 Pomarine Skuas flying west to east along the surf line toward Birdlings Flat.

many hundreds of birds at Crescent Island, including:
632 Pied Stilt
102 Bar-tailed Godwit
11 Red Knot
3 Turnstone
34 Banded Dotterel

The CCC Kaitorete Reserve also had good numbers of waterbirds, including 225 Pied Stilts but no Arctic waders......

[rowey]

Hi Andrew.

Probably should have mentioned on this post but on the 20th of January when my brother Gareth and I popped down to the Spit Tip, we came over the dunes onto the beach just past the Black Hut. As the Southerly rolled over our heads we were treated to the quite amazing sight of at least 250 Gannets stretching along the horizon as far as we could see. They were battling the wind and dozens were blown over the beach and out over the lake. Was quite a spectacular sight to behold. Also had a Pom and at least a dozen Arctic Skua right in by the beach, passing up and down the coast.
They battled down the coast line to the South then as the wind eased slightly they started heading back up the coast towards Birdlings Flat. Photo shows a small portion of them with Black-backed Gulls interspersed.

[Adam C]

Well a very soggy day out at Embankment Road for the CCC April Wader Count. Pretty much the entire area still underwater from Jarvis to Yarrs Bay. Pied Stilt were out in force but very low numbers of Banded Dotterel. Not sure where they are all hiding at the moment.

Highlights were 2 Pecc Sands, 2 Sharpies, 18 Red-Necked Stint and 1 very pale Marsh Sandpiper all in little backwater bays.

Kieran Rowe and I spent the last 1 and a half hours wading through knee-deep water (and a few much deeper channels just to get out of the yarrs bay area.

Interested to hear what the Spit Tip turned up.

Adam

[paradoxdinokipi]

Any optimum tides to visit for waders? As there doesn't seem to be tides on the lake?

[rowey]

Hi

Any time is good for waders, however usually best viewing times are early morning before heat haze becomes an issue. However with the lake being so high at the moment, there is little habitat available. The best being between Jarvis and Embankment Roads currently for waders. The lake is being opened up as I type this, with the expected breach tomorrow morning. It has been opened twice in the last few weeks but strong southerlies have closed it up pretty quickly. A recent survey revealed a handful of Arctic migrants still hanging around.

Cheers

Kieran

[andrewcrossland]

Hi folks, as Rowey and Adam C outlined in their posts above, along with Noah Fenwick and Niall Mugan they helped CCC ranger teams to carry out some late season wader counts at Lake Ellesmere to get some data on Pied Stilt and Banded Dotterel post-breeding flocking size and to get some definitive counts on arctic waders when many are well-coloured and conspicuous. Unfortunately extremely high lake levels inundated most of the lake's mudflats and saltmeadow habitats and many birds left the lake earlier than expected. Below are the numbers from the BirdsNZ/CCC wader survey on 26/11, the multi-agency all-species survey on 12 Feb and the 2 additional surveys on 12 March and 2 April. (note: S/W Plovers weren't counted in Mar and April so this species isn't listed or included in the "totals". Yes! annoyingly, the sum total of all the sector counts for Banded Dotterel did indeed land on 1000. (I hate it when that happens!).

[Jan]

Thanks for your survey numbers, Andrew.
Te Waihora/lake Ellesmere doesn't have tides. It is a landlocked hapua cut off from the sea by a very long gravel bar. There are others like this, though smaller, down the east coast of the S Is. Te Waihora gets all the runoff from several small rivers, like the Selwyn, Halswell and Kaituna stream.
In periords of high rainfall the lake can rise considerably and it once extended as far inland to where I live in Halswell. Since settlement and farming got underway, a lot of that swampland has been drained, but the lake still tries to expand......
When the level is high, birds go into flooded pasture to feed and there can be masses near the lake in paddocks, but it is very hard to survey all of it.