The Wandering Tattler is an uncommon summer migrant to Australia and is usually solitary (1). In non-breeding plumage it can be difficult to distinguish from the closely related Grey-tailed Tattler. The Wandering tend to frequent rocky shores, their preferred habitat, whereas the Grey-tailed use sand and mud flats. However, as there are exceptions to most rules, these habitat preference differences should not be relied on to determine the identity of either species. As for most migrant shorebirds, the daily lives of both these Tattler species in Australia are strongly influenced by tidal movements.
The rocky headland on the north side of the Brunswick River entrance within the Brunswick Head Nature Reserve has proved to be a good location for me to find the Wandering Tattler over a number of years now. On the 6th of May I found a solitary bird in partial breeding plumage. Given it is late in the migration season it is likely this bird will over-winter in Australia and is probably a young bird that has not reached breeding maturity.
The rocky headland provides an abundance and rich diversity of marine life at low tide where the lone Wandering Tattler was found actively foraging among the seaweed and associated molluscs and marine worms. At one point though the bird took a brief break and attempted to rest or sleep in a moderately brisk sea breeze. It soon commenced foraging again, taking full advantage of the low tide.
The photos below were all taken with the same camera and camera settings with a strong early afternoon late autumn back light (relative to the photographer) and yet the colour of the bird varies greatly in the series of photos as it moved about over the rocky shore. This natural plumage colour variation due to light angle and the character of the light due to reflection from the surrounding surfaces, adds to the challenge of identifying birds. The first photo shows the partial breeding plumage best. In some photos the bird has an overall brownish colour and in others it looks grey.
Please click on photos to enlarge.
NOTES
(1) Birdata records for the two Tattler species in Australia provide a measure of the relative abundance of both via the number of surveys in which they are recorded. The Wandering at the time of writing had 2,474 Birdata records whereas the Grey-tailed had 37,827 records, a ratio of 1:15.3. I suspect that a good number of Wandering Tattlers go unreported as they are mistaken for Grey-tails however the ratio is still much in favour of the far more numerous Grey-tailed Tattler.
(2) You can find an earlier 2017 post featuring a non-breeding Wandering Tattler found at the same location here: https://avithera.blogspot.com/2021/07/wandering-tattler.html
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