A nice find this afternoon on the Whanganui River Estuary was a black-tailed godwit, that seems to be part of a group of 12, who have just turned up, so maybe passing through. Nice to see the white under-wing, that makes identification easy.
Black-tailed Godwit on the Whanganui River Estuary
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Re: Black-tailed Godwit on the Whanganui River Estuary
Strangely this Bar-tailed godwit with moult pattern ...I thought this moult pattern was supposed to be on January not March, and Bar-tailed godwits left NZ for Yellow sea, China, few weeks ago, on March.
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Re: Black-tailed Godwit on the Whanganui River Estuary
I am no expert on moult in godwits, but an interesting observation. The last of the godwits migrated just this last week. We checked the Whanganui estuary this afternoon, and found a few barwits, but no black-tails.
- philbattley
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Re: Black-tailed Godwit on the Whanganui River Estuary
We often see a few individuals like this at this time of year. They're presumably either adults that have been delayed in arriving in NZ and are so late in moult they cannot migrate, or immatures that are doing a moult that doesn't match their conventional adult timing. I suspect it is the latter, but we have no actual information on the age of such birds.
Cheers, Phil
Cheers, Phil