Avalon Beach

I went to Avalon Beach (VIC, not the one in Sydney!!) today to have a look at the fantastic waders people have been seeing there – and hopefully some crakes and rails as well. There have been photographs of Long-Toed Stint, Broad-billed Sandpiper and Grey-tailed Tattler, along with lots of waders colouring up into breeding plumege. Well, apart from c. 260 Banded Stilts, there were more fisherman / boat owners than waders! I saw around a dozen RN Stints, a couple of sharpies, some Red-cap Plovers, including very young young, and not much else. I did see something that may have been the Long-toed Stint but it flushed just as I got the bins onto it and flew across the pond. I couldn’t relocate it. I don’t really think it was a LTS. None of the birds I saw were even close to breeding plumage, and my opinion is that most of the waders left with the full moon over the last couple of nights. The only thing that brought a half-hearted smile was a Striated Fieldwren close to the road on the way home Russell Woodford