Volume 1 Issue 2 July 2014 Quest the newsletter

Come and meet us: Editor’s diatribe — Rick Simpson  15th-17th August 2014. British Birdwatching Fair: www.birdfair.org.uk What is the difference between a birdwatcher and a  23rd-24th August 2014. Dutch conservationist?

Bird Fair: www.dutchbirdfair.nl/ To my mind there should not © © Elis Simpson  5th—7th September 2014. Fal- be any difference at all. If we, sterbo Show: who are passionate about , www.sofnet.org/fbs are not the ones actively trying to save them from hardship and  22nd-23rd November 2014. harm, then who will? North–west Birdwatching Festival It was this thought that Martin Mere WWT: dramatically transformed our www.wwt.org.uk need to see a Spoon-billed Sandpiper, while we still could, Forthcoming talks: into a desire to help save the  11th September 2014 North species from extinction in the Bucks RSPB local group: The first place. Cruck Barm Milton Keynes MK13 The journey that Elis and I 9AP www.rspb.org.uk/groups/ have been on together is northbucks incredible, not just literally, flying across the globe alighting in 14  3rd November 2014. Sutton countries on 6 continents, but Ibisbill Ibidorhycha struthersii Coldfield RSPB local group: Bish- also the more significant journey op Vasey’s Grammar School, we have made from being ‘belonged’ to us in the first Elis and I have been Sutton Coldfield B74 2NH people desperate to see a place! Even the few birds of this discovering projects both large www.rspb.org.uk/groups/ Spoon-billed Sandpiper, come genre that live in dry areas are and small where people are suttoncoldfield what may, to what we are today, not free from problems. making a difference. Local founders of a brand new charity Afforestation is occuring across communities supporting beach dedicated to wader southern Africa for example, nesting bird protection Inside this issue: conservation. savannah turning to trees, the programmes, schools becoming In the following pages you will increased use of off road involved with the self same  Limited edition Wader read about our current position vehicles is eating away at projects, concerned citizens Quest Collectables 2 and what we plan for the future hitherto undisturbed habitats. taking the local authorities to snapped up but we can’t help occasionally Pollution of seas and fresh task for the lack of effort being  The Wader Quest casting an eye back over our water, transformation of rivers put into conservation, it is great mobile charity shop shoulders at those glorious 15 due to dredging and conversely to see and the more we see the  Hooded Plover appeal months of freedom and silting due to soil errosion. It all more it makes us believe that — 2013/4 breeding adventure from time to time. looks pretty bleak. there is a growing section of season update But the fun and frivolity of all Yet there is good news, we society that is not solely led by that travel brought home some have been discovering that, if the need for ‘economic growth’  Wader Quest Magel- of the more serious problems you look, there are hundreds if and ‘wealth creation’; two lanic Plover project 3 that are facing; wetlands not thousands of people across polpular sound bites of  Meetings, events and being drained, Prairies and this benighted planet that are politicians today. talks Steppes being turned into getting off their backsides to do We need to take stock and agricultural wastelands, something about all this, apart think about these words found  Black Stilt and Shore perversely, the abandonment of from the essential researchers on a wall in a Brazilian school: Plover captive breeding 4 traditional farms allowing open and field ornthologists there is a Only when the last tree is felled, programme, NZ areas to become overgrown and veritable army of volunteers who The last fish dead unsuitable for waders to care enough to give up their own And the last drop of water  Little Curlew tracking 5 continue to thrive and intertidal time freely to be an antidote to polluted, project by AWSG zones are being ‘reclaimed’. all this negative impact we Will mankind realise he can’t eat Reclaimed? As if they ever humans are having. money!  The Gauteng Wader Challenge, South 6 Africa- photographing waders within a 100km Featured wader: Spotted Redshank Tringa erythropus radius

 Inland wader watching 7  Prizes required

 Wader Quest World Watch 8  Contact Information

 Corporate Sponsors © Elis Simpson Page 2 Wader Quest the newsletter

Limited edition Wader Quest Collectables snapped up!

We recently launched a limited edition They first went on sale at the Norfolk Bird Wader Quest Collectables item with a batch Fair where they aroused a great deal of of 20 hand-crafted Spoon-billed interest and several people also contacted Sandpipers. Each one is in a slightly us having seen them on our blog postings.

different pose and as they are all hand They had a truly international appeal, we painted each is unique. The models were found ourselves scurrying off to the Post numbered and a small certificate of Office to send parcels both within the UK authenticity included in the hand-made and beyond to Finland, Canada and even boxes. New Zealand!

These little models proved very popular We are hopeful that we will have more and we soon sold out. available soon, our man in Brazil is working When we first got them we placed them on them as we write so if you missed out on on a table to photograph them and we felt the first batch, you’d better be quick with that we were in possession of our own little © Elis Simpson the second, they won’t be around for long terracotta army. Our terracotta army. we suspect.

The Wader Quest mobile charity shop!

Almost every High Street in the land is now littered with charity shops vying to relieve you of your money for their chosen ‘just cause’, so why, we thought, should Wader Quest be any different? We were very fortunate in that we happened to come across a couple of treasure troves in the form of people downsizing their living accommodation and wanting to ‘get shot’ of a load of old junk. We volunteered to shift this ‘junk’ to the visits to the local dump, cleaning, buffing, We have now completed six car boots and local tip, our payment being that whatever sand-papering, painting and polishing we as a result have raised around £250 which we thought salvageable we could keep to set off for our first car boot sale to see what is a very useful sum at this stage. In sell in our charity shop. The deal was done. we could raise for the charity. addition some of the better items that we Unfortunately we do not yet have We cannot say that this is a vast return on have received we have sold on ebay and sufficient funds to risk the overheads of our time, but at least it is enjoyable for the that has brought us a further £340, after renting a shop in the High Street, so we most part and many of the car boot costs. We therefore consider this to be a came up with the idea of a molbile charity organisations let us have a discount or worthwhile use of our time and will shop, i.e. a series of car boot sales! even a free pitch as we are rasing funds for continue to carry out these sales as and After a great deal of toing and froing with a good cause. when we can, and besides, it’s fun.

Hooded Plover 2013/14 breeding season update

The 2013/14 breeding season for the organisations a strong case has now been bird from 35 pairs is a shocking result. Hooded Plovers was a mixed one. made for nominating the eastern form of On the Bass Coast the birds fared better, There were some successes and equally Hooded Plover to be raised to Vulnerable but still the results look dismal. From 29 there were many failures too but, as status. If this is achieved it will assist pairs of birds there were just 7 chicks BirdLife Australia’s Beach Nesting Birds greatly in the mangement of the species as fledged. In this case it is thought that high Programme Project Manager, Grainne a whole. Much of the data that has been tides and fox predation were the main Maguire put it, ‘this comes as no surprise collected to make this case has come from causes of failure. for a species that has a multitude of threats the 1,000+ volunteers that form an army of The Bellarine Coast produced 4 chicks facing it’. ‘Hoody’ protectors across Australia. and the Surf Coast a further 3 with one Due to the work that has been carried out The news from the Mornington Peninsula, chick being killed by an unleashed dog less by BirdLife Australia and other where we visited with Renee Mead during than a week before fledging. our trip to Australia, was that over the whole On Waratah Bay 6 birds fledged while on peninsula 37 pairs of Hooded Plovers were Philip Island there were 21 nests, monitored, 139 observed and just 34 containing 50 eggs of which 22 hatched but chicks observed of which just 1 fledged. only 8 fledged. This success rate was down 25% on the In Western Australia the annual survey of

average and since hatching rate was down Hooded Plovers counted a total of 658 by 10% it shows that chick mortality rates birds of which a little over 10%, 69, were were high this year. juveniles. These terrible statistics tell the sad story Whilst this is not the complete picture of © © Elis Simpson of the Hooded Plover in a nutshell, and the Hooded Plovers’ season by any means, Hooded Plover Thinornis rubricollis while this was a particularly bad year, just 1 it does illustrate what they are up against. Volume 1 Issue 2 Page 3

Wader Quest Magellanic Plover project

The Magellanic Plover project is advancing double figures. possible, it is certanly much needed. slowly but surely. Ricardo Matus is raring to The real problem this bird faces at the It may turn out in the end that the Near go in Chile and we have had a favourable moment is that we simply do not have an Threatened status this species currently quote for the nets he is going to require to accurate estimate of the population and holds is correct, it may even get complete the project. therefore we cannot possibly establish a downgraded to Least Concern, let’s hope So what is this project all about? Well, it trend for that population. so, but there is also the grim prospect that Ricardo Matus was the person who it could be upgraded to Vulnerable, or helped us with specific information that worse. enabled us to see these birds on our Although our project is on a small scale travels. For a long time he has wanted to we hope that our results will be the first start a ringing and flagging programme that steps in assessing this species allowing would, in time, reveal some details about decisions to be made about its possible survival rates and longevity as well as management; better to act in a small way perhaps answering some questions about now than to find, later on, that we need to where individual birds go when they leave start fund raising for yet another captive the breeding grounds. breeding programme! Ricardo has much experience ringing If you feel that you would like to support

waders and hopes to catch them both at the project by making a donation you can © © Elis Simpson the nesting sites and also on their migration do so through the website or, if you wish to Magellanic Plover Pluvianellus socialis stop over points and wintering grounds be involved in any other capacity, feel free such as Bahia Lomas. to contact us by email. seems that there is a general perception, of We have agreed to fund the purchase of which we became aware at the British the nets and also fund his field expenses at Birdwatching Fair last year when seeking least for the first year, and of course hope information and help, that it is getting to contiinue to do so into the future. harder to locate these interesting and little Later the project could include tracking

studied birds these days. We were told by a devices giving us even more insight into © © Elis Simpson local birder that where once 40 birds could these birds’ movements and also we hope be found the numbers now rarely reached that a full survey on the ground may be Magellanic Plover Pluvianellus socialis

Meetings, talks and events

On May the 5th the first AGM of Wader should be sought and the result since then period for us. On the following Wednesday Quest together with a meeting of the Board has been that Chris Lamsdell has agreed to we visited the Slimbridge Wetland Centre to of Trustees was held at the Natural History join the Board. He is a welcome addition give a talk to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Museum, South Kensington, London. It was with much experience in this role and his Trust staff and volunteers about our travels a superb venue which was secured for us experience as a ringer will strengthen the and plans for the future. Sadly, due to the by Trustees Lee Dingain and Rachel Walls Board’s breadth of knowledge. delicate stage of the ‘Spoony’ breeding who are members there. Those present Since then Wader Quest has attended a season we were not able to visit them while were Rick Simpson, Elis Simpson, Martin number of events starting in May when we we were there but we did get to see some Simpson, Lee Dingain and Rachel Walls, attended the Norfolk Bird Fair (NBF). The adorable Common Crane chicks and heard apologies for absence were received from weather was kind to us and, with the stand the ‘Spoonies’ singing in the nearby David Lindo. situated alongside our friends and Founder breeding pens! Many topics were discussed about the Corporate Sponsors Wildsounds, we knew Hot on the heels of this, the next weekend, future of the charity and how to progress. we were in for a fun weekend. we found ourselves in Norfolk again, this One thing that was stressed was that it is time at the Neotropical Bird Club AGM very important for us now to manage the where we were able to give a short transition of Wader Quest from being the presentation and had a stand in addition. fundraising event that it was to making sure Plenty of interesting talks on a wide variety that it was evident that the character of of topics and on this occasion we were able Wader Quest had now changed and that it to talk about our plans for the Magellanic

had become a charity dedicated to wader Plover project. © © Elis Simpson conservation. On the 5th of July we had yet another trip Wader Quest stand at the Norfolk Bird Fair An election of Officers was carried out to Norfolk, this time to the OSME summer with the results being; Rick Simpson — The only disappointment was the low turn meeing. It was an enjoyable meeting with Chair; Elis Simpson — Treasurer; Martin out from visitors, but it did not diminish the yet more fascinating talks, and we met Simpson stood down as Secretary, a post atmosphere in the marquee at all. We also some really interesting people there. We he held as an interim measure and Rachel gave a talk on the Saturday with many of gave a short talk about our time in the UAE Walls was elected to that post. Thanks were the audience coming to the stand and had a stand where we showcased our given to Martin for his help in getting the afterwards to sign up and/or make work. charity started by taking on the role. He will donations. We sincerely hope we will be We are now looking forward to the British remain a Trustee with the remit of able to attend again next year and that it Birdwatching Fair and the Dutch Bird Fair in overseeing IT development in the future. will be better attended, as it deserves. August and the Falsterbo Bird Show at he It was also decided that more Trustees The NBF was the beginning of a very busy beginning of September. Page 4 Wader Quest the newsletter Black Stilt and Shore Plover captive breeding programme, NZ — Sabrina Luecht

The Black Stilt or Kaki is a large wader The New Zealand Shore Plover is a endemic to New Zealand. This species is colourful shorebird endemic to New one of the most endangered birds globally Zealand. It is one of the rarest plover species globally, with a very small and vulnerable population. There are currently only fourteen known females on the New Zealand mainland and continuing conservation efforts are extremely essential. The species is classified as

Threatened (Nationally Critical) in the New © Elis Simpson Zealand Threat Classification System 2012, and listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red Shore Plover Thinornis novaeseelandiae

population consisted of 120-140

individuals (containing 45-50 breeding © Glynn Taylor © Glynn pairs). Black Stilt Himantopus novaezelandiae During the 1990’s a captive population was founded at the Trust and Pukaha

and remains the rarest wader, despite Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre; using twenty years of intensive management. The wild eggs transferred from Rangatira/South Black Stilt is classified as Threatened East Island. Over 400 captive bred juveniles (Nationally Critical) in the New Zealand have since been released on select

Threat Classification System 2012; and © Elis Simpson p r edat or -free offshore islands. listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Black Stilt Himantopus novaezelandiae Unfortunately released birds are prone to Red List of Threatened Species. dispersal to the nearby mainland, where The Kaki Recovery Programme began in they encounter predators and human 1981 when the population declined to 23 List of Threatened Species. disturbance. Therefore the total wild adult birds. The Department of NZ Shore Plover were previously found population fell to about 60-65 pairs in Conservation (DOC) and the Trust now run around the New Zealand mainland, but 2013. one of the largest captive breeding were extirpated by the 1870’s. The retreat The Trust currently holds eleven adult programmes in New Zealand. Annual from their traditional range coincided with birds, eight of those being breeding birds. releases of captive birds, wild collection the spread of introduced mammalian Breeding begins in late October/November, and predator control have likely prevented predators last century. Norway rats and with two to three clutches produced per Black Stilt from becoming extinct in the cats are proposed as the principal causes wild. of loss, since NZ Shore Plover disappeared The Trust plays a pivotal role in black stilt after the arrival of these species and prior conservation, housing up to 45 birds birds to the arrival of ship rats and mustelids. per season. Three to four clutches of eggs Since then NZ Shore Plover were confined are collected from each captive breeding to the Chatham Islands, where their range pair per season. All eggs are transferred to continued to shrink as predators spread. By

1900 they were confined to a single population on predator - f r e e

Rangatira/South East Island. Conservation

© © Sabrina Luecht

Shore Plover Thinornis novaeseelandiae

© Glynn Taylor © Glynn breeding season. The first clutch of eggs from each breeding pair is removed, to Black Stilt Himantopus novaezelandiae artificially incubate eggs and hand rear chicks. The breeding pairs then re-lay a DOC for artificial incubation and hatching. second or third clutch. The last clutch is left On their last clutch, day old chicks are © Sabrina Luecht with the adults to rear. The first clutch of returned to captive breeding pairs, which Shore Plover Thinornis novaeseelandiae chicks is released into the wild in January, replace dummy eggs in the nest. The chicks with the second and third clutches released stay with the pairs until August, when they efforts over the past twenty years have in March. are released into the wild in the Mackenzie aimed at founding additional populations. Footnote: The 2013/2014 Shore Plover Basin. Many juveniles are also transferred Within the Chatham Islands, birds have breeding season produced 29 eggs, of to the Trust, and remain in captivity for pre- been translocated from Rangatira/South which 26 hatched. Of these 22 survived release conditioning until release into the East Island to Mangere Island. Some and fledged; 2 were retained (females) to wild in August. On average 120 chicks are stragglers also reach Pitt Island, but are add to the breeding stock and 20 birds released annually. The population is slowly unable to maintain a sustaining population were released on predator-free island increasing, though the release survival rate there due to predation. In 1999 a small release sites. is only 33%. The species’ long-term survival genetically distinct population that rapidly This work is carried out by the Isaac therefore remains dependent on captive declined was discovered on Western Reef. Conservation and Wildlife Trust: breeding and predator control efforts. In 2013 the total Chatham Island www.isaacconservation.org.nz Volume 1 Issue 2 Page 5

Little Curlew tracking project by AWSG.

The AWSG (Australian Wader Study Group) is a special interest group of BirdLife Australia and it has been carrying out a tracking project this year investigating the northerly migration of Little Curlews. Wader Quest is one of three websites that have been following and publishing the results from this tracking project with information and maps supplied by Clive Minton and Inka Veltheim; along with

BirdLife Australia and the EAAFP (East Asian and Australasian Flyways Partnership) . Until this study was instigated ringing and flagging programmes had produced little or no information from outside of Australia, so where these birds went once they left there was something of a mystery. There were very few reports of migrating Little Curlews in Asia and so when the opportunity arose for attaching some satellite transmitters to a number of them it was eagerly taken. Five transmitters were attached to birds in late 2013 but by the time it came for the birds to move north two had already been lost. One spent its last days and hours in a forest which rather suggests that its carrier had become the victim of a predator of some kind. The remaining three birds varied greatly in their timing and migration strategy although not greatly in the direction they took; the birds were all given leg flags in addition to their transmitters and those that survived to migrate were 131947 (BB), 131943 (BC ) and 131945 (BD). The first to set off on the long migration was BD. Little Curlews put on little weight before migration so it was not surprising that the first leg was not exceptionally lengthy by comparison to some species, BD made its first stop in the Phillipines where it stayed for about 10 days, it then went on to make further short stops in China and eventually arrived in Siberia having travelled about 10,000km in a month. BB followed a very similar route but was travelling two weeks behind BD and the latest information has it still in China in These traces shows just how close these two birds’ migration routes were 131945 (BD) June. and 131947 (BB), BB following two weeks behing BD. Mapps supplied by Inka Veltheim. Something very strange happened to BC. It stopped its northward trajectory in south-east to an island off Sulawesi, then to see if BC will eventually reach the Indonesian Borneo, from there is flew south-west, later turning south, to spend breeding grounds or if it’ll give up and some time in Lombok, Indonesia; there was return south due to being well behind some doubt as to whether it would continue schedule. north at all as it was getting very late in the For more information and for information year. Finally it set off north again and about many other interesting wader related stopped in two locations in the Phillipines studies and projects in the region visit the and was last reported in China. website and look at the latest Tattler

The routes taken but BD abd BB are very newsletter www.awsg.org.au/tattler/Tattler- close to each other, it is interesting to note 33.pdf that they use agricultural land frequently Footnote: Similar tracking projects have and lakes and salt pans along their route. revealed some fascinating information

© © Robert Bush As there has been no such study carried out about migrating waders; the Bar-tailed Little Curlew Numenius minutus previously, all of this information is new and Godwit flying from Alaska to New Zealand receiving its transmitter, sadly this one therefore crucial to our understanding and non stop and more recently the discovery did not make it to migrate. knowledge about these birds. We will watch that Scottish Red-necked Phalaropes with interest what happens next, especially migrate west to the Pacific for example. Page 6 Wader Quest the newsletter The Gauteng Wader Challenge, South Africa- photographing waders within a 100km radius — Sue Oertli

Inspired by the Wader Quest initiative, I took up a challenge to find and photograph a target of 40 wader species within a 100 km radius of Johannesburg and Pretoria during 2014. The list of species was com- piled using records of waders previously identified by birders participating in the Wider Gauteng Challenge - a yearly chal- lenge to identify a possible 500 bird spe- cies within the 2 boundary circles shown in the diagram to the right. To date 489 spe- cies have been recorded within these 2 circles. As the Challenge habitat around Johan- nesburg and Pretoria includes excellent grassland, woodland, bushveld, thornveld and wetland, I was able to photograph Spotted Thick-knee and African Wattled, Crowned and Blacksmith Lapwing around my urban patch on the 1st of January.

Picture courtesy of Mr. Kevin Ravno.

Birding Marievale Bird Sanctuary (a RAM- The region experienced heavy late summer SAR site near Springs) on the 25th of Janu- rains in March and most of the waders de- ary with Peter & Jenny Sharland of Wader parted the area early due to lack of suitable Quest South Africa, we added African Snipe habitat. I am only recording the occasional and Common Ringed Plover to the list. The remaining 2 months of the summer wader season here was spent photo- graphing Marsh Sandpiper near the town of Devon in the SE section of the Johannes- burg 100 kilometre circle. 2 species of Glareolidae namely Double- banded and Bronze-winged Courser were picked up in the Sasolburg area of the Or- ange Free Province and in the Kgomo Kgomo area north of Pretoria respectively.

Spotted Thick-knee Burhinus capensis

On the 3rd and 4th of January I birded an area called Kgomo Kgomo about 80 kilo- metres north of Pretoria. The area trans- © Sue Oertli forms into an ephemeral floodplain from African Jacana Actophilornis africanus the flooding of the Pienaars River in years of good rainfall & this year the water levels Three-banded and Kittlitz’s Plover now were good for waders. I photographed 10 whilst Double-banded Courser has re- species for the challenge including Little mained in the Sasolburg area for winter. Stint, Wood and Common Sandpiper, Com- To summarize, a total of 22 waders have mon Greenshank, African Painted Snipe, been photographed for the 6 months to the African Jacana, Three-banded and Kittlitz’s end of June for the Gauteng Wader Chal- Plover, Black-winged Pratincole and Black- lenge. I eagerly await the return of more winged Stilt. waders in September when I hope to find

The remainder of January was spent pho- Caspian and Chestnut-banded Plover plus tographing Temminck’s Coursers at the odd godwit or two to push the tally up Ezemvelo Nature Reserve near the town of and raise additional funding for Wader

Bronkhorstpruit. I visited the banks of the © Sue Oertli Quest going forward. You can follow the Crocodile River near Hartebeespoort Dam Challenge on Facebook under the group (near the town of Brits) for Ruff and Pied Bronze-winged Courser Rhinoptilus title “Wader watch — wider Gauteng 2014” Avocet. chalcopterus for further updates. Volume 1 Issue 2 Page 7

Inland wader watching UK — Simon Nichols

As most of you probably gleaned from the admirers until at least the 6th of May, often last newsletter where I gave a brief sharing the same muddy island as the Black- introduction to Buckinghamshire’s inland tailed Godwit in breeding plumage. A waders, we are somewhat deprived, as a Sanderling was still present on the 8th of landlocked county, of those peak wader May, but whether or not this was the same passages that used to hit us in the mid 80’s individual or a series of birds moving through and early 90’s. we can’t be sure as it wasn't seen on some Speculation as to why we should have of the preceding days. experienced this downturn in numbers Things then stepped up a notch in the ranges from habitat reduction to a shift in world of Sanderlings when five birds were migration patterns. The former has recently seen early in the morning on the 22nd of gained much favour with a core bunch of © Elis Simpson May. Rob Hill, a “Farm” stalwart decided, North Bucks regulars as the major factor and Ruddy Arenaria interpres after finding this quintet of shorebirds, that for very good reason. This theory is an evening visit was on the cards - cue the somewhat born out by the blinding passage its slightly commoner cousin, the Black-tailed mega! With only thirty-five minutes of of these birds at the Old Wolverton site, Godwit, joined us for a protracted stay of daylight left Rob pulled a breeding plumage locally known as “The Farm”, which was on over a week from 21st of April. The Farm Red-necked Phalarope out of the bag. offer to us this year, with many waders then attracted some tern action towards the Luckily, due to the text alert being stopping off as they headed north to breed. end of the month with small parties of Arctic heightened at this time of the year three Casting our minds back to early April the Terns all heading west as well. lucky local birders were able to make it to Spotted Redshank in its wonderful As we headed into May things started to the site before darkness swallowed up this transitional plumage was still to be found get interesting, near daily coverage started to beautiful little waif. The month was not yet gracing the shallow mud islands at “The turn up both quality and quantity, the biggest done, with yet another two Sanderlings seen Farm”, remaining there until the 8th. surprise of all was Manor Farm’s first Ruddy on the 29th of May. Another, or possibly the same indivuidual, Turnstone that turned up on the 1st of May There is never a dull moment at “The appeared on the 22nd of April but it was only accompanied by a Sanderling and ten Farm” and after this mouthwatering series present for one day which was a pity as this Dunlins; the Dunlins were to remain a of sightings we can only guess at what the was a real belter in black. feature throughout May with probably thirty post breeding passage will bring for us to A transitional Bar-tailed Godwit dropped in to forty birds moving through and the species enjoy. for fifteen minutes on the 4th of April before was seen on most days. Next time we’ll look at what stopped to continuing its westward migration path, while The Ruddy Turnstone remained for all breed as its not all about the passage! Prizes required

During the year we attend a number items of clothing, vouchers for money off or events and like to be able to run both a free items at outlets and travel companies, competition and a raffle at each. These are free subscriptions for magazines or clubs, excellent ways to raise funds as, for a small they are all things that people would love to outlay, people stand a chance of winning an own or take advantage of. excellent prize. Last year at the British Birdwatching Fair So, as we have several events coming up (BBF) we ran a competition called the over the next few months, it is timely for us Calidris Conundrum. We had 9 species of to send out an appeal to anyone who has Calidris wader that had to be identified, any item they would like to offer as a prize daunting stuff, but we made it easier by to let us know. giving the names of all the birds, just not in Books, paintings (orginal or prints - he right order, so the players had to match preferably signed), sculptures, DVDs, optics, the picture to the name. We do not set out to make anyone feel silly or inadequate and so we talked people through the pictures allowing them to decide, whilst offering some hints and tips on Calidris identification. Hopefully some of the points sank in and people left knowing just a little more than they knew when they arrived, all part and parcel of raising awareness and trying to raise the curtain of mystery that seems to fall when waders are

mentioned. © © Elis Simpson We have a new competition that we will L-R top: Pectoral Sandpiper/White- be taking to the BBF, the Dutch Bird Fair BirdLife’s Jim Lawrence selects the raffle rumped Sandpiper/Red-necked Stint. winners at the Wader Quest stand at the and the Falsterbo Bird Show so come along to our stand if you are at any of these Middle: Least Sandpiper/Dunlin/Red 2013 BBF assisted by Martha Argel from events and see how you get on with Tricky Knot. Bottom: Sanderling/Semipalmated Brazil. Tringas! Sandpiper/Curlew Sandpiper. Don’t forget to make a note in your diary

•See how many wader species you can see in a weekend wherever you may be in the world •Send your list to us to collate to create a worldwide weekend list •Encourage non wader enthusiasts to look more closely at waders •Introduce young birders to the delights and challenges of wader watching and identification •Get sponsored to raise money for Wader Quest •Have fun!!!

Contact details

Website: www.waderquest.org

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: © Elis Simpson https://www.facebook.com/WaderQuest?fref=ts Twitter: https://twitter.com/waderquest LinkdIn: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=244810450&trk=nav_responsive_ta b_profile_pic For postal address please send email to [email protected]

Funding and donation news:

Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Spoon-billed Sandpiper captive breeding programme. Completed: £3,526.06 — 31/03/14 BirdLife Australia: Beach nesting birds programme, specifically for the Hooded Plovers. Latest: £544.72 / £1,000.00 Wader Quest Magellanic Plover project. Latest: £72.95 / £2,000