Memorandum to:         The Director of Birds Australia

 

From:                          Birds Australia Rarities Committee (BARC)

 

Date:                            17th January 2007

 

Voting Members:         Mike Carter                   Andrew Silcocks

                                    Rohan Clarke                 Glenn Holmes

                                    John Hatch                    Jamie Matthew

                                    Tony Palliser                 Danny Rogers

                       

cc.                                Alan Morris, Keith Brandwood

                                                           

 

 

Submission No 492: Grey-headed Lapwing Vanellus cinereus, Burren Junction, NSW. 19th June 2006 to late August 2006. Submitted by Karen & Brett Davis.

 

 

Verdict:  Accepted

 

 

This case relates to the rather remarkable and well-publicised observation of an adult Grey-headed Lapwing Vanellus cinereus located within the small country township of Burren Junction, near Wee Waa, NSW.  The bird was first located on the 19th June 2006 and was subsequently seen by hundreds of interested enthusiasts until at least late August.

 

The submission relies heavily on photographic evidence, which depicts a large lapwing with a uniform grey head, neck and upper-breast, a black breast-band and contrasting black and white wing pattern. No other species of lapwing displays such a combination of characters, making the identification process straightforward. Given these plumage characters the individual can be aged as an adult in alternate (breeding) plumage.

 

Members voted unanimously in favour of acceptance. Several members suggested that the bird  may represent an example of reverse migration whereby the individual has flown south rather than north to the breeding grounds. Certainly the distances over which this species migrates, the plumage stage of the bird (alternate) and the timing of the occurrence are all consistent with this hypothesis.

 

This is the first record for Australia and perhaps the southern hemisphere, though it has previously been recorded in Borneo and Sulawesi.

 

 

 

Selected Bibliography:

 

Coates, B.J., Bishop, K.D. & Gardner, D. (1997), A Guide to the Birds of Wallacea, Dove, Alderley, Queensland.

Grimmett, R., Inskipp, C. & Inskipp, T. (1998), Birds of the Indian Subcontinent, Christopher Helm, London.

Hayman, P., Marchant, J. & Prater, T. (1986), Shorebirds; an Identification Guide to the Waders of the World, Croom Helm, Sydney.

Kanouchi, T., Abe, N. & Ueda, H. (1998), Wild Birds of Japan, Yama-Kei, Tokyo (in Japanese).

Kirihara, M., Yamagata, N. & Yoshino, T. (2000), Japanese Bird 550: Waterbirds, Bunichi General Publisher, Tokyo (in Japanese).

MacKinnon, J. & Phillipps, K. (1993), A Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo, Sumatra, Java and Bali, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Robson, C. (2000), A Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia, New Holland, London.

Wild Bird Society of Japan, (1982), A Field Guide to the Birds of Japan, Wild Bird Society of Japan, Tokyo.

 

 

 

Tony Palliser

Chairman, Birds Australia Rarities Committee