Letter to AWSG Members 2020

Letter to AWSG Members

With the new world of COVID 19, the AWSG Committee has been observing the requirements set in place to deal with the virus but has engaged nevertheless with a number of activities in relation to migratory shorebirds. I have outlined these below.

The 2020 – 2022 AWSG Committee

We now have a new AWSG Committee that came into operation on 1 July. I have attached the Committee composition (at Annex A) including some brief information about the members of the Committee. The Committee will continue to meet quarterly but by Zoom in the current world of COVID 19.

Leg Band Reports

Thank you for contributing to shorebird research studies in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway.  The information you are helping to collect is incredibly valuable for scientific and conservation purposes. In anticipation of a new online system the AWSG website form has now been made defunct but you can still send in your flag sightings of shorebirds and terns to the database operator at flagging@awsg.org.au.

To enable a quick turnaround in processing please provide the following data at a minimum:

• Species
• Date of observation
• Observer name
• Location name
• Coordinates (lat/lon)
• Flag colour(s) and flag position on legs (left/right leg, tibia/tarsus)
• Flag engraving (if any)

Photos can be sent along with the above details as these are a great aid in identifying individual birds. Information on age, plumage etc is welcomed but is not required.

 

Alternatively, if you are likely to regularly send in multiple sightings, please get in touch to request a spreadsheet template for data entry.

Death of a Legend

Dr Clive Dudley Thomas Minton, AM, (7/10/1934 – 6/11/2019)

A reflective Clive Minton in ‘formal’ attire, on the shore of Delaware Bay in 2006 (Chung Yu Chiang photo)

Dr Clive Minton, described as a father figure in global wader studies, was killed in a car crash on 6 November 2019 at Dunkeld in Victoria, Australia. His wife Pat and a family friend were travelling with him at the time and were seriously injured although now in recovery. They were all returning from a short holiday on Kangaroo Island in South Australia.

Doug Watkins selected as Chief Executive of EAAFP

Doug Watkins, Chairman of the Australasian Wader Studies Group, has been selected as the Chief Executive of East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership Secretariat. 

Doug Watkins at Jerrabomberra Wetlands, Canberra, Australia.

On 28 September 2019, the East Asian Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP) announced that Doug Watkins had been selected and appointed to be the Chief Executive of East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership Secretariat.

Doug is well known to many in his native Australia, as well as many of those representing the 37  Partners of the EAAFP, for his long history of involvement with the study and conservation of migratory shorebirds in Australia since the 1980s. Firstly with the Australian Wader Studies Group (ASWG) then on the international scene with Wetlands International.

Searching for Leg Flags

With high numbers of waders carrying flags at the present time it is essential that maximum effort is put into searching for flagged birds. Large numbers of sightings from a particular site or area, far from being more boring sightings, add more to the value of the flagging program than just one or a few sightings.

For example it is has now been possible to use flag sightings to show differing arrival dates and median migration dates of different populations of the same species from different parts of Australia, through Asia. This is only possible with very large numbers of sightings.

Recording the number of birds searched to yield one flag sighting will also help in determining the proportion of different populations migrating through an area and also may give an indication of how correct the population estimates are.

The flagging program can be used to answer all sorts of long standing questions about movements of waders. To what extent is South Australia used as a stop over for waders migrating to and from S.E. Australia? To what extent do southern Australian waders stop on the north coasts of Australia on northward migration, or do they overfly them? What is the entrance point on the Queensland coast for Bar-tailed Godwits on southward migration after their assumed direct flight from Alaska? What is the role of the island arc route though Indonesia as opposed to the direct non-stop migration route to the Yellow Sea? To what extent do waders relocate their non-breeding areas, in subsequent seasons and do some species relocate to the inland Australia when conditions are suitable?

There are dozens of such questions which we now have the potential to answer. The flagging program is potentially a very powerful tool in helping us to understand wader movements and populations, and so give solid scientific evidence in assisting in the formation of conservation programs.

Everybody, anywhere, can help in this program. Please look for leg flags. The more that are seen, the greater the value. Also records of the absence of flagged birds, together with the number of birds searched can be of value.

Please Note

Please do not report orange flag sightings in Victoria in the area from Corner Inlet westwards to Port Phillip Bay, or yellow flag sightings in NW Australia from Port Hedland Saltworks, 80 Mile Beach or Roebuck Bay. These birds have been banded locally.

Report Leg Flag and Band Resightings

Thank you for contributing to shorebird research studies in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway.  The information you are helping to collect is incredibly valuable for scientific and conservation purposes.

Submit your sightings to the Birdmark Portal

The new BirdMark portal is specially designed for resightings of colour marked waders along our flyway.

The BirdMark site went live in February 2021. It contains banding and flagging data from the VWSG. It also contains data from the Australasian Wader Studies Group, Global Flyway Network, Northern Territory wader study group and Queensland Wader Study Group, as well as observations from throughout the flyway.

In 4 different languages it offers the possibility to enter and submit your observations both interactively or as a file. Videos on the various ways in which you can do this are included in the site’s “Help Guides”. Feedback on your observations, including a history of the birds that you have observed, will be returned to you within a couple of days of submitting your data (see example feedback).

With the launch of this site we hope to further boost the reporting of marked shorebirds, which is crucial for ongoing conservation and scientific research, informing on the birds’ population dynamics, movements and site use.

Please note the old AWSG flagging email is no longer in use.

 

Colour Flagging Protocol

The program of flagging waders has revolutionised wader migration studies. The flag is a small coloured plastic band with a tab on the end. Unlike with banding, the bird does not have to be caught to find out in which region it has been banded.

The program started in Australia in 1990. A flagging protocol has been developed for the Flyway, which enables any country, or in some cases regions within a country, to join the scheme.

At present Australia (5 locations), New Zealand (North and South Island), Japan (3 locations), South Korea, China (Hong Kong, Yellow Sea and Shanghai) and Taiwan are colour flagging birds.

It is recognised that there is a need to coordinate all colour marking activities for migratory birds throughout the flyway. In this protocol we have attempted to deal only with colour flagging of migratory shorebirds. If the principles embodied here are accepted by all bird banding schemes and researchers, it would then be appropriate to also attempt international coordination of colour banding in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway.

 

Leg flag charts

Information on the Colour Flagging Protocol can be found here..

An easy to use Colour Chart of the leg flag colours currently ‘in use’ can be found here..

 

High reporting rates

For birds from Victoria, S.E. Australia, the reporting rate from flagged birds is 17 times that of banded bands, and for N.W. Australia 5 times. Also flagged birds can be watched for anywhere, as opposed to banded birds for which most recoveries only come from a few areas where there is much hunting or banding activity. For some species and localities in the Flyway where there have been many flag sightings it is now becoming possible to find out the timings of migrations of birds from different origins (i.e. N.W. and S.E. Australia: Alaska and Siberia) through the same area, and even to make estimates of the proportions of the total populations passing through.

 

Observing the flagging protocols

All countries starting flagging are urged to follow the protocol. This has been carefully worked out to ensure that all researchers throughout the Flyway benefit from the program, and do not destroy other people’s research, (and their own), by not following the protocol.

 

Totals of flagged waders in Australasia

Up until 31 December 2002 114,501 waders have been flagged in Australia since flagging commenced in 1990 as shown in Flag totals chart. The majority of these were flagged in Victoria (55,186) and Northwest Australia (51,604). A total of 38 species of migratory waders have been flagged, the greatest variety being in Northwest Australia, surprisingly even in species where relatively few have been colour marked, there have been a significant number of distant flag sightings.

 

Manufacturing flags

Details of how to make flags can be found in this extract of Stilt 32 (April 1998 pages 49-51).

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