Records of little whimbrels

[SomesBirder]

Little whimbrels are birds that have interested me for some time due to their exceptional rarity, but a problem I have is that I simply cannot get enough information about them. Robertson & Heather (2005) simply calls them 'rare visitors', and the OSNZ 2010 bird list, calling them 'uncommon but possibly annual visitors to New Zealand', is not much better. I have not found any documents about their records in New Zealand. The only report I have found of one on this forum is one that was seen and photographed at Miranda in 2009, and on the Wrybill birding tours website the only report I have seen is of one that was seen at Manukau in late 2003.

If anyone on this forum has seen little whimbrels in New Zealand, I would like to know when and where, and I would like to know if there is somewhere that I can get better information on their records in the country.

[Colin Miskelly]

Be patient SomesBirder
New Zealand Birds Online goes live in 8 weeks today (2 June)
Regards
Colin

[SomesBirder]

Apologies, Colin. I constantly forget about it.

[Ian Southey]

Go to the Notornis website and look at all the classified summarised notes.

Ian

[andrewcrossland]

they are no longer annual (although in the 1980s they certainly were ). Most I've seen in NZ is 2 at Lake Ellesmere.

[SomesBirder]

Thank you so much, andrewcrossland. That is unfortunate, but at least birds like common terns, Arctic terns and Eastern curlews remain annual.