Lake McLarty 5th Dec 2019: Sharpies, Avocet and a "banded" stilt

Another stifling hot day forecast (39c) so set the alarm for 4:00am and was at the lake not too long after sunrise. Visiting once a week means you can see the changes in the water level. As the lake is quite shallow, a water level drop of only a few centimetres can see the shoreline recede by 10 or 20 metres. 




The first change I noticed from the previous week was that the Red-necked Avocet had arrived, a flock of 140 birds were feeding in the southern shallows. they tend to keep to themselves and don't really mix with the Pied Stilts at all.

Red-necked Avocet

The numbers of sharp-tailed Sandpipers had risen dramatically with at least 2,000 birds present today. It's really tricky to get an accurate count as you can barely see their heads above the grass, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if the true count was nearer 3,000. In amongst them I picked out Pectoral Sandpipers, Long-toed Stints, Curlew Sandpipers and also some Red-necked Stints (which weren't present last week). 

waders in flight

On the return back to the car I noticed a Pied Stilt with an engraved yellow leg-flag. 

Pied Stilt with leg-flag

It turns out that this bird (ABP) was banded in Broome, (northern WA) on February 19th 2019, a distance of just under 2,000km from Lake McLarty.

Straw-necked Ibis flying over the lake

I had hoped to find a Ruff or even something rarer in amongst the sharpies but no luck today. Just after I left the lake I stopped to check for Brown Songlarks in the fields along the road. As I was watching a singing male songlark I saw a small bird sitting on a branch, it turned out to be a Black-eared Cuckoo, quite a rare bird this far south in Western Australia. 



My ebird checklist