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First recoveryof a Red Knot Calidris canutusinvolving the breedingpopulation on New Siberian Islands /[ke Lindstriim,Clive D. T. Minton& StaffanBensch

Lindstr6m,•, Minton,C.D.T, & Bensch,S. 1999.First recovery of a RedKnot Calidris canutus involving thebreeding population on New SiberianIslands. Wader Study Group Bull. 89:33 - 35.

We reportthe sighting of a maleRed Knot in NW Australiathat was colour-banded on its neston theNew SiberianIslands. This is the first recoveryinvolving a bird knownto be from thisbreeding population. Togetherwith dataon movementswithin the Australian-New Zealand region and the East Asian-AustralasianFlyway, it suggeststhat the non-breedingarea for the New SiberianIslands population is situatedmainly in NW Australia.

•ke LindstrtSmand Staffan Bensch, Department ofEcology, Animal Ecology, Lurid University, Ecology Building, S-22362 Lurid, Sweden. Clive D. T. Minton, 165 Dalgetty Road, Beaumaris, Victoria 3193, Australia.

Addressfor correspondance: .•keLindstrtSm, Department ofEcology, Animal Ecology, Lurid University, Ecology Building, S-22362 Lurid,Sweden. Phone: +46-46-2224968, Fax: +46-46-2224716, E-mail: [email protected]

INTRODUCTION afternoonand evening walking around on the gently Red Knots Calidris canutushave a High Arctic circumpolar undulatingtundra, looking for breedingwaders. Red Knots breedingdistribution. Several discrete breeding populations were displayingseemingly everywhere and together with have beenidentified. For someof them,unambiguous singingSandefiings they dominatedthe acousticscene. conclusionsabout subspecies status have not yet beendrawn, Althoughwe regularlysaw single Knots walking around on partlybecause the connectionsbetween breeding populations the ground,we spentmany hours in vain waitingfor birdsto andwintering populations are unknown(Pierstoa & Davidson return to presumednests. 1992). One suchpopulation is breedingon theNew Siberian Islands off the northern coast of Siberia. Based on studies of At 1940 local time, a Knot suddenlyappeared about 4 m in plumagecharacteristics, Tomkovich (1992) suggestedthat front of our feet, showingthe characteristicwader distraction thesebirds form one out of two or threepopulations within the display,obviously leaving its nest. The nestwas soonfound, canutussubspecies, and that the New SiberianIslands birds containingfour eggs. After about 15 minutesthe bird had migrateto winteringgrounds in Australasia.However, the enteredour nest-trap. The bird wastinged with one stainless migrationroutes and wintering grounds have not yet been steelting (RIKSMUSEUM STOCKHOLM 4363204) and described.In thisnote we reportthe first recoveryof a Knot threecolour tings: pink overmetal on theright leg, whiteover ringedas a breedingbird on the New SiberianIslands. It was paleblue on theleft leg. The bird hadthe following sightedon severaloccasions at Broome, on the northwest morphology:wing (maximumchord) 161 ram, bill 31.7 mm, coastof Australia. We briefly discussthe importanceof this totalhead 62.0 mm, tarsus33.2 ram,tarsus+toe (including the findingfor understandingthe Red Knot migrationpattern in claw) 62 mm andweight 124 g. We did not sexthe bird. the Pacificregion. This wasthe only Red Knot ringedon the New Siberian Islandsand one out of tenringed during the expedition (4 pulli BANDING CIRCUMSTANCES ON NEW SIBERIAN and6 adults).A quiteextraordinary coincidence is thatexactly ISLANDS fourhours later we observeda colour-tingedSanderling that Duringthe Swedish-Russianshipborne expedition in summer turned out to have been marked in southern Australia. 1994, "TundraEcology Expedition -94"(Gr6nlund & Melander 1995), a two-day visit was paid to the northwestern partof FaddeyevskiIsland (75ø33'N, 143ø50'E),one of the NewSiberian Islands. On 10 July, •L andSB spent the 34

SEXING THE BIRD At capture,a bloodsample was collectedand storedin SET-buffer (0.15 M NaC1, 0.05 M Tris, 1 mM EDTA). GenomicDNA wasextracted following a standard phenol-chloroformprotocol (Sambrook et al. 1989). By employinga molecularsexing technique (Baker et al. in press) usingprimers developed by Griffithset al. (1996), it wasclear that the bird was a male.

DISCUSSION The recoveryreported here is the first involvinga Red Knot of certainNew SiberianIslands origin. It indicatesthat at least somebirds of theNew SiberianIslands Knot population migrateto non-breedingareas in northwestAustralia. This may well be theregular non-breeding area for thepopulation. SW Australia Extensivebanding and colour flag markingof Red Knotsin S Australia NWAustralia northwest Australia, as well as in eastern and southeastern

New Zealand Queensland Australiaand in the Aucklandregion of New Zealand,has NewS Wales shownthat thereis only a small onwardmovement of birds Vlclorla from northwestAustralia to other areas(some 3,000-5,000 km to the southeast,see Figure 1). This contrastswith extensive interchangeof Knots betweeneastern Australia and New Zealand (Barter 1992). Recoveriesfrom birds bandedin these areassuggest that they have a moreeasterly breeding area in Siberia. However,all populationsseem to sharea common stopoverarea in the northernhalf of Chinaduring northward migration (Wilson & Barter 1998).

A detailedanalysis of recoveriesand flag sightingsis currently Figure 1. Map showingtentative northward migration routes in progressand will be followedby an analysisof the andstopover locations for the Red Knot populationsin the extensivebiometric data collected (Clive Minton in prep.). It EastAsia - AustralasianFlyway. Note the locationsof wasnevertheless considered that this first recovery of a bird FaddeyevskiIsland (square) and Broome (triangle). This map knownto be from theNew SiberianIslands breeding wasfirst presented at The SouthernHemisphere Ornithological populationwas worthy of a separatenote. Congressin Albany, WesternAustralia, in October1996. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS RESIGHTING CIRCUMSTANCES IN NORTHWEST We are most gratefulto the SwedishPolar Research AUSTRALIA Secretariatand the Russian Academy of Sciencesfor allowing On 10 November 1995, Mary Atkinson,a visitor at Broome usto participate in "Tundra Ecology -94". •L wassupported Bird Observatory,observed a colour-ringedRed Knot on the by grantsfrom the SwedishNatural ScienceResearch Council northernshores of RoebuckBay near Broomein Northwest andCrafoordska Stiftelsen. We arealso grateful to thestaff of Australia(18ø00'S, 122ø22'E). The colour-codereported was identical to the one we used for the New Siberian Islands bird. theBroome Bird Observatory(run by theRoyal Australasian OrnithologistsUnion - now called"Birds Australia") for Sinceonly onebird was ringedwith this code,there are no collectingand furnishing all thesighting records. Annette doubtsthat the bird seenin Broomewas the individual tinged Greensladekindly did themolecular sexing. Theunis Piersma on FaddeyevskiIsland, New SiberianIslands. The placeof andPavel Tomkovich gave helpful comments on an earlier resightingis 10,406 km almostdue south(173 ø) of the ringing site. versionof themanuscript.

The bird was seenagain at the samelocation near Broome an additionalfour times:20 and22 March,3 April and20 September1996. At the lastresighting the colourrings were still intactand bright. All the sightingswere by oneor more experiencedobservers including the wardensof BroomeBird Observatory,Jon Fallaw andBecky Hayward. The bird has not beenseen again since 1996. 35

REFERENCES Central pictureThe bird! Inset Measuringtotal head and bill Baker, A. J., Piersma, T. & Greenslade, A.D. 1999 Molecular versusphenotypic sexing in red knots.Condor 101 in press annualcycles of five subspeciesof Knotsin perspective. WaderStudy Group Bull. 64, Suppl.:187-197. Barter,M. 1992. Distributions,abundance, migration and moult of the Red Knot Calidris canutusrogersi. Wader Study Sambrook, J., Fritsch, E.F. & Maniatis, T. 1989. Molecular GroupBull. 64, Suppl.:64-70. cloning,a laboratorymanual. Second ed. ColdSpring Harbor LaboratoryPress, Cold SpringHarbor. Griffiths, R., Daan, S. & Dijkstra, C. 1996. Sex identification in birdsusing two CHD genes. Proc. R. Soc.Lond. B 263: Tomkovich,P.S. 1992.An analysisof the geographic 1251-1256. variability in knotsCalidris canutusbased on museumskins. WaderStudy Group Bull. 64, Suppl.'17-23. Gr6nlund, E. & Melander, O. (eds). 1995. Swedish-Russian Tundra Ecology-Expedition1994. A cruisereport. Swedish Wilson, J. R. & Barter, M. A. 1998. Identification of Polar Research Secretariat, Stockholm. potentiallyimportant northward migration staging areas for 'long-jump' migrantwaders in the EastAsian-Australasian Piersma,T. & Davidson,N.C. 1992. The migrationsand Flyway. WaderStudy Group Bull. 87: 66-76.