Banded Dotterels.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 934, 2 December 1933, Page 10

Banded Dotterels.

Nature Notes.

By James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.

J)UNES of shifting sand and a clean sweep of ocean beach stretch north from Kairaki. Inside the first range of sandhills, there glisten in the sun small, shallow lakes, or circular areas from which the water has disappeared, leaving the sand damp. Banded dotterels may be seen in those places in fairly large numbers. They run lightly over the hard sand, searching for food, and often stop and bob their heads and utter a plaintive note, sweet and pleasant. As their plumage harmonises in colour with the sand, thev are not noticed until a visitor is close. At first, in the distance, they may be mistaken for pieces of paper blown over the sand by the wind. Approached closer, their distinguishing decorations. a black band on the breast, a chestnut band lower down, show’ up clearly. Sometimes there is only a single individual, sometimes there are a pair, sometimes a small flock.

Grown-up banded dotterels are amongst the most skilful experts in birdland in luring strangers from the sites of nests. A pretended lame leg or a pretended damaged wing, and distressful cries comparable to crocodiles’ tears, are the most successful devices. Females are more skilful in these deceptions than males, but both sexes are clever. An alarm note by a parent renders a young banded dotterel absolutely motionless. Its costume, rusty red and mottled grey, immediately becomes almost a cloak of invisibility. The male’s chestnut sash is brighter than the female’s. Young banded dotterels do not wear the sash. The nests are crude. In some cases there are hardly any nests, the greenish-grey eggs, speckled and mottled with black or brown, merely lying under shelter of a flimsy piece of tussock on the sand. Eggs are found on several seaward farms in Canterbury.