Shorebirds of Australia

By Andrew Geering, Lindsay Agnew and Sandra Harding

Shorebirds of Australia brings together the latest information about the evolution, ecology and behaviour of shorebirds and how they are distributed in Australia.

Complete with colour photographs and up-to-date distribution maps, it provides descriptions and tips to assist with the identification of all species of shorebird in Australia, which comprise about 10 per cent of Australia’s total avifauna. In addition to information about their habitats, the most significant threats to their existence are mentioned, as well as actions in place to help conserve these birds.

The book is a valuable reference for a broad range of people, from birdwatchers and field naturalists to professional ornithologists and land managers entrusted with the responsibility of protecting Australia’s natural resources, especially its wetlands and coastal regions.

Winner of the 2008 Whitley Award for Field Guide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
• Release date: Jun 19, 2007
• ISBN: 9780643103009

Book preview

SHOREBIRDS of AUSTRALIA

In memory of Nigel Roberts, whose generosity continues his work for shorebirds beyond his short but dedicated life.

SHOREBIRDS of AUSTRALIA

Andrew Geering, Lindsay Agnew

and Sandra Harding

© Text and illustrations copyright Queensland Wader Study Group 2007. Photographs copyright as credited in captions.

All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the Australian Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, duplicating or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Contact CSIRO PUBLISHING for all permission requests.

First printed 2007, reprinted with minor corrections 2008.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Shorebirds of Australia.

Bibliography.

Includes index.

ISBN 978 0 643092 26 6

1. Shore birds – Australia. 2. Shore birds –

Australia – Identification.

I. Geering, Andrew D. W. II. Agnew, Lindsay.

III. Harding, Sandra B. 1962– .

598.330994

Published by and available from

CSIRO PUBLISHING

150 Oxford Street (PO Box 1139)

Collingwood VIC 3066

Australia

Front cover

Red-necked Avocet, Werribee, Victoria. Photograph by Rohan Clarke.

Back cover (from left)

Wood Sandpiper, Werribee, Victoria. Photograph by Peter Fuller.

Masked Lapwings, Townsville, Queensland. Photograph by Graeme Chapman.

Red-necked Stint. Photograph by Peter Fuller.

Set in Garamond 11/14 pt

Cover design by James Kelly

Text design and typesetting by Rob and Terttu Mancini

Tables by Luke Mancini

Index by Russell Brooks

Printed in China by the Australian Book Connection

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

List of authors and affiliations

1   Evolutionary history and taxonomy

The evolutionary history of shorebirds

Families Scolopacidae and Charadriidae

Conclusions

2   Breeding ecology

Where do shorebirds breed?

When do shorebirds breed?

Mating systems

Parental care

Predation

Conclusions

3   Migration

The origin of migration

Differential migration

Migration and the ‘biological clock’

The energetics of migration

Making the flights

Northward migration

Southward migration

4   Feeding ecology and habitat selection

Feeding behaviour

Harvestability of prey

Feeding in flocks

Spatial distribution

5   Plumages and topography

Feathers and moults

Plumages

6   Species descriptions

Scolopacidae

Charadriidae

Rostratulidae

Burhinidae

Haematopodidae

Recurvirostridae

Glareolidae

Jacanidae

Pedionomidae

Vagrants

7   Threats to shorebirds and conservation actions

The importance of staging sites in the flyway

Threats to shorebirds

Managing the threats

Endnotes

Bibliography

Index

Preface

Shorebirds, otherwise called waders, are a source of fascination to many birdwatchers around the world. Most species occurring here in Australia are only temporary residents during spring and summer and come autumn, the majority of the adult population departs for distant breeding grounds in the Northern Hemisphere. The diminutive Red-Necked Stint, the smallest shorebird in Australia, migrates an incredible 13 000 km to its breeding grounds in the high arctic tundra. Migrations of this magnitude require remarkable navigation skills and it is perhaps not surprising that the occasional individual loses track and turns up in a place where it normally would not occur, causing great excitement among the birdwatching community. On their return to Australia, the birds moult into non-breeding plumage, a rather nondescript plumage, and distinguishing features between some species become very subtle. As a group, shorebirds present some of the most difficult identification problems that a birdwatcher is likely to encounter.

Australia has a rich history of amateur research on shorebirds, a good description of which is provided by Libby Robin in her book The Flight of the Emu: A Hundred Years of Australian Ornithology 1901–2001 (Melbourne University Press 2001). The first community shorebird group in Australia was the Victorian Wader Study Group, which traces its history back to 1975, when David Robertson arrived in Australia from Malaysia. David had banded waders in Malaysia and realising that little of this type of work had been done in Australia, began mist-netting at Werribee near Melbourne. In 1978, Clive Minton, a world pioneer of cannon netting in Britain, also immigrated to Australia, and in December of that year, demonstrated the technique at Werribee. Cannon netting greatly accelerated the rate of banding and in 1979, it was decided to form the Victorian Wader Study Group, with David Robertson and Clive Minton as co-convenors.

At the instigation of Norman Wettenhall, former president of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists’ Union (RAOU), a meeting was held in August 1980 to organise a national project to study the populations, distributions and movements of the different shorebird species in Australia. Funding for an RAOU count coordinator for a five-year program was obtained from the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service and John Martindale was appointed to the position. The primary driver for this project was the Japan-Australia Migratory Birds Agreement, which obliged the Australian Government to foster the conservation of bird species migrating between the two countries. The first national shorebird count held within the framework of this project occurred on 21–22 February 1981. In May 1981, the RAOU held a scientific day on shorebirds and this meeting culminated in the formation of the Australasian Wader Studies Group, initially led by Clive Minton. In December 1981, Brett Lane took over from John Martindale as count coordinator until the end of the project in 1985. The data collected by 700 volunteers who did counts twice a year (February and July) at a range of wetlands around Australia was presented in the landmark publication Shorebirds in Australia (Nelson Publishers 1987), written by Brett Lane and with illustrations by Jeff Davies.

The AWSG and VWSG continue to this day and additional state-based wader study groups have established in Western Australia (1979), New South Wales (1990) and Queensland (1992). In the early 1980s, the Tasmanian Shorebird Study Group, a subsection of the Bird Observers’ Association of Tasmania (now called Birds Tasmania), was active but this group no longer exists although Birds Tasmania still undertakes shorebird activities. The most recent group to come into existence is Friends of Shorebirds SE (2005), a group focussing on shorebirds in the south-east of South Australia.

The range of activities undertaken by the various wader study groups is broad, from scientific research to community education and conservation advocacy. The national, biannual count program that began in 1981 is ongoing and is providing data on trends in the occurrence of the different shorebird species. Shorebird banding is still being done at various sites around Australia, most prolifically in Victoria and in north-west Australia by the VWSG and AWSG, respectively. Through capture and banding, new insights into the biology of shorebirds in Australia have been obtained, including routes and staging sites used during migration, sex ratios, age compositions, reproduction rates, morphometrics and moult data for the different species and subspecies. Data from census and survey work has contributed to the nomination of wetlands as Ramsar sites and the development and implementation of threatened species and coastal management plans. As an outlet for both professional and amateur research on shorebirds, the AWSG publishes the scientific journal The Stilt.

Although the primary focus of the AWSG’s activities has been in the Australasian region, increasingly more attention is being paid to other parts of the East Asian–Australasian Flyway where many of the most serious threats to shorebirds occur. The publication Tattler, which began in 1994 for more informal communications between AWSG members, has now broadened in scope to become the newsletter of the Asia Pacific Flyways and is translated into Indonesian and Chinese and circulated free on the internet. AWSG members have been involved in training workshops and surveys in countries bordering the Yellow Sea, and have helped to identify this area as a critical staging site during migration.

In 1998, the Queensland Wader Study Group (QWSG) determined the need to publish a book about shorebirds to further its education objectives. This book started as a regional account but its scope inevitably widened following the realisation that any description of the biology and conservation of shorebirds in Queensland was equally relevant to the rest of Australia and in many cases, the world, especially those countries along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. Our aim has been to provide an overview of the latest research on the biology and conservation of shorebirds and while endeavouring to be as scientifically informative as possible, we have tried to present the information at a level that can be understood by someone with only a basic training in biology. This book has slightly different emphases to that of its predecessor, Shorebirds in Australia, with more detailed descriptions of the biology and conservation of shorebirds and less information on their distribution and movements within Australia.

In the first four chapters of this book, basic aspects of the taxonomy, migration and breeding and feeding ecology of shorebirds are dealt with, with emphasis on those species found in Australia. However, many key studies on the biology of shorebirds have been done in Europe and North America, frequently using species unique to these regions and it has therefore been impossible to limit discussion solely to species occurring in Australia and still provide a comprehensive description of the topics. In chapters 5 and 6, the topography and plumages of shorebirds are described and descriptions of each shorebird species found in Australia provided. In the final chapter, we examine shorebird conservation, a topic of concern to us all and the ultimate objective of most scientific research programs.

Andrew Geering, Lindsay Agnew and Sandra Harding

Acknowledgements

Many people have provided assistance during the various stages of production of this book. Peter Driscoll, Ivell Whyte, Brian Coates, David Edwards and Rob Mancini contributed to early planning meetings and start-up money was provided through a Queensland Gaming Commission grant. Leo Joseph, Tara Paton, Marcel van Tuinen, Gareth Dyke, Peter Driscoll, Carla Catterall, Mark Barter, Neil Saintilan, Joe (Y-S) Lee, Tim Jennerjahn, Kerstin Kober, Jeremy Thompson, Arthur Keates, David Milton, Michele Burford, Peter Nichols, Brett Lane, Phil Straw and Clive Minton have provided useful suggestions to help improve the content of the book and in many cases, also critically read parts of the manuscript. We thank Andrew Silcocks (Birds Australia) for his efforts in producing the distribution maps provided in chapter 6 and Doug Watkins (Wetlands International) for compiling data on the populations of the different shorebird species, much of which was provided prior to publication. We have been fortunate to be able to choose photographs from a very large selection, and we thank all photographers, whose names are mentioned in the captions, for their generosity in either donating or providing the photographs at a greatly reduced rate. In CSIRO Publishing, we thank Briana Elwood and Nick Alexander for their guidance and patience. This book would not have reached fruition without the generous sponsorship of the Port of Brisbane Corporation, for which we are very grateful. Finally, the editors express their sincerest thanks to their partners Margaret, Sue and David for the tolerance and support they have shown during the long hours needed to complete this project.

List of authors and affiliations

Phil F. Battley, Ecology Group, Massey University,

Palmerston North, New Zealand.

email: [e-mail]

Paul G. Finn, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Griffith University,

Nathan, Queensland 4111, Australia.

email: [e-mail]

Andrew D. W. Geering, Queensland Wader Study Group,

c/- Birds Queensland, PO Box 2273, Milton, Queensland 4064, Australia.

email: [e-mail]

Sandra B. Harding, Queensland Wader Study Group,

c/- Birds Queensland, PO Box 2273, Milton, Queensland 4064, Australia.

email: [e-mail]

Annie Rogers,

340 Nink’s Road, St Andrews, Victoria 3761, Australia.

email: [e-mail]

Danny I. Rogers,

340 Nink’s Road, St Andrews, Victoria 3761, Australia.

email: [e-mail]

David Stewart, Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service,

PO Box 42, Kenmore, Queensland 4069, Australia.

email: [e-mail]

Pavel S. Tomkovich, Zoological Museum, Moscow State University,

Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street 6, Moscow 125009, Russia.

email: [e-mail]

Michael A. Weston, Birds Australia,

National Office, Green Building, 60 Leicester Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia.

email: [e-mail]

Jim R. Wilson,

Granveien 46, 1911 Flateby, Norway

email: [e-mail]

1 Evolutionary history and taxonomy

Andrew D. W. Geering

What defines a shorebird? It is ironic that this fundamental question is often overlooked by the avid birdwatcher, who often can cite a long list of species that are called shorebirds but when pressed to explain why a curlew is a shorebird but an egret is not, is often left short of words. In this chapter, the evolutionary history and taxonomy of shorebirds are briefly described. It should be noted at this stage that the terms ‘shorebird’ and ‘wader’ are often used interchangeably, with the latter having more frequent usage in Australia, New Zealand and the UK although shorebird has been selected for use in this book because of the more intuitive nature and broader international popularity of the term.

As the name suggests, shorebirds are birds that commonly feed by wading in shallow water or saturated substrate along the shores of lakes, rivers and the sea. Not surprisingly, they share morphological features suited to this lifestyle such as relatively long legs compared to body size, and, most notably in sandpipers, long necks and bills. Also as a reflection of a predominantly migratory or at least highly mobile lifestyle, the wings are generally long, narrow and pointed, an adaptation to long distance flight. However, any definition based solely on lifestyle or morphological features tends to break down, as distantly related birds, such as herons and egrets, share many of these features through adaptation to similar ways of life (convergent evolution). Furthermore, there are internal contradictions within the group. For example, the Inland Dotterel occurs in semi-arid areas of Australia and rarely encounters free flowing water and the Greater Sand Plover swaps a littoral habitat in the austral summer for the steppes and gibber plains of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia during the breeding season¹. Furthermore, lapwings, which have a sedentary lifestyle, have broad rounded wing-tips, an adaptation allowing manoeuvrability in the air².

To provide a more accurate definition of what a shorebird is, one must turn to their taxonomy. The term shorebird refers to birds within 14 different families in the order Charadriiformes (Table 1.1). Conventionally, the Charadriiformes is divided into three suborders: suborder Charadrii, containing the shorebirds, suborder Alcae, containing a single family, the Alcidae (auks, puffins, murrulets and allies) and suborder Lari, containing four families, the Laridae (gulls), Sternidae (terns and noddies), Stercorariidae (skuas and jaegers) and Rhynchopidae (skimmers)³. However, it is now recognised that shorebirds are a paraphyletic group (that is, the group contains the most recent common ancestor but not all descendants of that ancestor) and revision of the higher order taxonomy of Charadriiformes is needed to accurately reflect evolutionary relationships.

Table 1.1 The families of shorebirds*

The evolutionary history of shorebirds

Charadriiformes is a very ancient group of birds, which from ‘molecular clock’ estimates, arose about 80 million years ago, probably on the supercontinent of Gondwanaland based on present day distributions of families within the order⁴–⁶. ‘Transitional shorebird’ fossils have been described from the late Cretaceous Period (146 to 65 million years ago) but taxonomic placement of these fossils is problematic because of the incompleteness of the specimens, all of which consist of single bones⁷. The earliest fossils that can be assigned with confidence to Charadriiformes date back to the early Eocene Epoch (56 to 34 million years ago) and originate from Europe and North America.

Recently, much progress has been made in understanding the evolutionary history of the Charadriiformes, particularly from analyses of both nuclear⁵, ⁸ and mitochondrial⁹, ¹⁰ genes and also using a ‘super-tree’ approach, combining trees derived from a range of different types of data¹¹. A strong consensus has emerged as to the relationships within Charadriiformes, with three major groups identified:

1.   Plovers, stone-curlews, sheathbills, oystercatchers, stilts, avocets and Magellanic Plover – sub-order Charadrii.

2.   Sandpipers, jacanas, painted snipes, seedsnipes and Plains-wanderer – sub-order Scolopaci.

Fig. 1.1 Fossil of Morsoravis sedile, a primitive member of the Charadriiformes, from Palaeocene-Lower Eocene deposits in Jutland, Denmark. Scale bar = 10 mm. Figure reproduced from Dyke & van Tuinen⁷ with the permission of Blackwell Publishing.

3.   Gulls, terns, skimmers, skuas, alcids, Crab Plover, coursers and pratincoles – sub-order Lari.

Contradicting previous views, the plover lineage is now considered to be the most primitive branch in the evolutionary tree and sandpipers are relatively more closely related to gulls than to plovers. This discovery has very interesting evolutionary implications, especially with regards to what are now viewed to be the most primitive morphological and behavioural traits of the Charadriiformes. For example, it has been speculated that the common ancestor of the Charadriiformes was likely a non-cooperative breeder with maternal care, the most common mating system of the plovers and allies⁶. At least some of the morphological features shared by distantly related shorebirds in the different lineages seem to have originated independently through a process of convergent evolution. Conversely, other taxa have exhibited rapid divergent evolution, such as the lily-trotting jacanas with their peculiarly long toes, whose closest relatives are the painted snipes.

Fig. 1.2 Evolutionary relationships of shorebirds (Charadriiformes) deduced using new molecular data. Phylogenetic positions of odd-ball taxa are indicated with dotted lines. Figure adapted from van Tuinen et al.⁶ by Robert Mancini.

There have been many other interesting findings from the above-mentioned molecular studies. Placement of the Plains-wanderer within Charadriiformes has been confirmed and this enigmatic bird from inland Australia appears to be most closely related to the seedsnipes from South America. The time at which these two groups split from each other has been estimated to be c. 46 million years ago, a date consistent with the separation of the Australian and South American continents. The stone-curlews are now thought to be most closely related to the sheathbills and Magellanic Plover, the latter traditionally classified in a monotypic sub-family within family Charadriidae. The genetic diversity within the genus Burhinus, containing the Bush Stone-curlew (B. grallarius) from Australia, the dikkops (B. capensis and B. vermiculatus) from Africa and the Peruvian Stone-curlew (B. superciliaris) from South America, is as great as the skimmer, tern and gull families combined, suggesting that classification of the stone-curlews and thick-knees at the generic and even family level needs to be revised. Analyses of both nuclear and mitochondrial genes support placement of the button-quails (family Turnicidae) within the Charadriiformes as a sister group to the Lari. The higher-level classification of the button-quails has been in a state of flux for many years because of problems with interpreting morphological characters due to convergent evolution between the button-quails and other terrestrial birds such as the true quails (order Galliformes) and rails (order Gruiformes).

Families Scolopacidae and Charadriidae

Families Scolopacidae and Charadriidae are the largest and most diverse groups of shorebirds and their taxonomy warrants further discussion. Scolopacidae, comprising 88 species in 23 genera, is further divided into seven sub-families, namely the Scolopacinae (woodcocks), Gallinagininae (snipes), Arenariinae (turnstones), Calidridinae (sandpipers), Limnodrominae (dowitchers), Phalaropodinae (phalaropes) and Tringinae (godwits, curlews and shanks)¹². It is likely that the classification of Tringinae will be revised, as recent molecular analyses suggest that the shanks (Tringa spp.) are more closely related to the phalaropes than to either the godwits or curlews⁵, ⁸. Birds from all subfamilies, except Scolopacinae, occur in Australia and all are non-breeding migrants.

In 1982, a new species of sandpiper, called Cox’s Sandpiper (Calidris paramelanotos), was described¹³. However, more recent molecular studies indicate that Cox’s Sandpiper is in fact a hybrid between a Curlew Sandpiper (Calidris ferruginea) and a Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos)¹⁴. There are several other examples of inter-specific hybridisation in the genus Calidris¹⁵.

After Scolopacidae, the next largest family of shorebirds is Charadriidae, comprising 65 species in 10 genera. Charadriidae is further divided into two sub-families: Charadriinae (true plovers) and Vanellinae (lapwings)¹⁶. The origins of the true plovers have recently been investigated from analysis of mitochondrial DNA¹⁷. There have been some very interesting outcomes from this study. It is speculated that the true plovers originated in South America. For this group of birds, migration is thought to have arisen as a consequence of a shift in breeding rather than non-breeding range. Many birdwatchers have witnessed the unexpected arrival of a bird, far outside its normal range. Interestingly, the DNA analyses also point to this phenomenon occurring in prehistoric times, with two independent colonisations of Australia by the ancestors of the endemic plovers. One of these natural colonisations appears to be reflected in the Hooded Plover (Thinornis rubricollis) and Black-fronted Dotterel (Elseyornis melanops) being more closely related to species from the New World such as Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) and Semipalmated Plover (C. semipalmatus) than to other Australian endemics such as Red-capped Plover (C. ruficapillus) and Inland Dotterel (C. australis). The latter two species appear to stem from an earlier colonisation of Australia.

Fig. 1.3 Cox’s Sandpiper (centre), a natural hybrid between a Curlew Sandpiper (sides and back) and a Pectoral Sandpiper (Western Treatment Plant, Werribee, Victoria, 29 January 2006). Photograph: Rohan Clarke.

The tundra plovers (Pluvialis spp.), although currently classified within sub-family Charadriinae, are very distinct from all other plovers and almost certainly a new family will be erected for members of this genus. DNA sequence analyses suggest that the tundra plovers are in fact more distantly related to the true plovers than to either the oystercatchers or stilts and avocets⁸. The four species of tundra plover, namely the Grey Plover (P. squatarola), Eurasian Golden Plover (P. apricaria), Pacific Golden Plover (P. fulva) and American Golden Plover (P. dominica), have the most northerly breeding distributions of any species within family Charadriidae and in contrast to the true plovers, are thought to have evolved in the Northern Hemisphere².

Sub-family Vanellinae has its greatest diversity in Africa, where 14 of a total of 25 species are found¹⁸. In Australia, representatives of this sub-family include Banded Lapwing (Vanellus tricolor),