Black fronted dotterels?

[mpp26]

Seen at St Anne's lagoon Cheviot

[Davidthomas]

Yup!

There have been upwards of 33 seen there recently, must be a decent winter flocking site given the low water levels. How many did you see when oyu visited out of curiosity? (No worries if you didnt count them).

[Jan]

I think the highest count recently has been 44.

[Bill Cash]

Hi Jan,
A very interesting observation I visited a wetland up the Northbank R Marlborough on 2nd May 2016. This wetland is adjacent to the Wairau river and was developed by one of the vineyards. The day I visited it was almost dry with a very muddy edge, there was a total of fifteen (15) Black Fronted Dotterel busy feeding.
Although Black Fronted Dotterel do breed on the Wairau River they are not common and the majority are downstream of the Renwick Bridge. This wetland is about 10km upstream from the Renwick Bridge.
On my next visit about a month later and after a good rainfall there were fifty (50) Canada Geese were swimming where I saw the Black Fronted Dotterel.
Bill .

[Jan]

I'm not sure where BFDotterel breed in the upper half of the S Is. Some used to breed up the Waipara river and I suppose there are others in small numbers up other rivers too. It seems a whole heap go to St Anne's Lagoon in the winter if it has dried up somewhat. The same happened the year the OSNZ Conference and AGM was in Kaikoura, 2008? 2009? They are really easy to miss and unless they move, their pattern of colours and stripes just blends in with a muddy foreshore so easily. I wont forget the pair that had a nest on the edge of the tarmac next to a crappy wetland, almost among cars, that was in Oz., though.

[andrewcrossland]

The main breeding area for B/F Dotterels in Canterbury is on the Ashburton River, a great distance from St Annes Lagoon. North of CHCH, there have been 4-7 pairs nesting on the Waipara River since the mid 1990s, possibly earlier, and occasionally 1 pair at the Kowai rivermouth (just south of the Waipara River some years. Small numbers of wintering birds (possibly from these sites, or possibly also from elsewhere) have occurred on the Waipara RM lagoon, Pegasus Town wetlands, Seafield Lagoon at Brooklands, the Avon-Heathcote Estuary, Travis Wetland and Lake Ellesmere.

In far north Canterbury I found a pair near the camping ground above the Hurunui rivermouth a few years ago and they've also been reported on the lower Kowhai river. Otherwise I'm not sure where they would be, although suitable habitat may be available at places like the Conway River,Leader River, etc.

If the numbers on the Wairau R in Marlborough are lowish - as Bill seemed to suggest in his post - then isn't it most likely that the flock on St Annes lagoon (which only has muddy margins occasionally and is usually just a lake) originate across Cook Strait in the Wairarapa stronghold?

[Jan]

I don't know where they originate from and I was aware of most of those places that have had sightings in the past, but those were only a few birds at most. That's the point.....are they congregating from all over the S Is, or maybe from further afield as well?
Do we know if the Ashburton birds go north in the winter or do they stay down there?

Must catch up with you soon, Andrew. Have you got the wader counts from late June ready?

[andrewcrossland]

Hi Jan, yes all wader counts done, will send them through in next couple of days.

The Ashburton birds seem to be on the river year-round, but there are also littler groups at places like Spider Lagoon and Washdyke Lagoon. Ofcourse (I forgot to say in the post above) there's a good population on the Opihi R (and Orari too maybe?). So they could equally be the source of the birds on these two lagoons.
I reckon that if reasonable numbers of B/F Dotterel were disperising northwards from the South Canterbury and Mid Canterbury rivers then there would be much bigger numbers at habitats like Lake Ellesmere (50 km NE of the Ashburton R; 100 km NE of the Opihi R) and the Pegasus Bay estuaries ( a further 40-70 km). Why would they jump these habitats and flying to isolated, inland, St Annes Lagoon (180 km NE or Ashburton R; 230 km NE of Opihi R)? Then again, its also 230 km across Cook Strait to Lake Wairarapa. So ok, yeah, where the heck are these birds coming from??!!

[andrewcrossland]

36 black fronted dotterel at St Annes lagoon this morning.