FIRST RECORD OF GREY-TAILED TATTLER TRINGA (HETEROSCELUS) BREVIPES IN MAINLAND SUMATRA, INDONESIA
RIKI RAHMANSYAH1 & MUHAMMAD IQBAL2
1Bencoolen Bird Watching, Jl. Sepakat 6 Kampung Melayu, Bengkulu, Indonesia. Email:
rahmansyah.riki@gmail.com
rahmansyah.riki@gmail.com
2Daemeter Consulting, Jalan Tangkuban Perahu No. 6 Bogor, West Java 16151, Indonesia. Email:
kpbsos26@yahoo.com
kpbsos26@yahoo.com
The Grey-tailed
Tattler was first recorded in Sumatra during 1999–2000
when a single bird was observed on two occasions on Siberut Island, West Sumatra
(Grantham
& Kemp 2000,
Kemp
2000). There
have
been
no further records of the species until recently,
with a record from Belitung Island of East Sumatra on21 February 2014 (Iqbal et al. 2014). All previous records of Grey-tailed Tattler from the Sumatran
region
were from offshore islands (Grantham
& Kemp 2000, Kemp 2000, Iqbal et al. 2014);
to date there have been
none for the Sumatra mainland.
On
9 October 2014, RR observed one Grey-tailed
Tattler on a mud-sandy beach at Jenggalu river
(3°50'16.23"S, 102°17'35.20"E). Jenggalu River is part
of Pantai Panjang beach which is administratively in Gading Cempaka, Bengkulu city, Bengkulu
province
(Figure 1). The bird was identified as a Grey-tailed Tattler by plain grey upperparts, a light grey wash on the upper
breast,
the white supercilium,
a
rather
stout straight bill and shortish yellow legs (Figure 2). These characters fit well with the non-breeding description of Grey-tailed
Tattler in various field guides (Hayman et al. 1986, MacKinnon et al. 1993, Sonobe & Usui 1993, Gills &
Wiersma 1996, Chandler 2009, Robson 2011). This brings the total number of records of Grey-tailed Tattler
on mainland Sumatra
to two,
this
one
from Pantai Panjang beach (Bengkulu Province) and the other from the same location
on 6 November 2014. In view of
the
numbers
of Grey-tailed Tattlers that use the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, it is really quite strange that the species should be so scarce on Sumatra. However,
it is generally uncommon between Japan and Australia, which suggests that most birds undertake nonstop
flights
across this region, although some stop in the Philippines (Bamford et al. 2008). Similarly, Higgins and Davies (1996)
point
out
that
the species
is a rare passage migrant in much of south-east
Asia during southward
migration.
During northward migration, the species is a
common in northern Australia and it has been estimated that
some birds are
capable of flying nonstop from north-west
Australia to the
Philippines
or southern China (Bamford et al. 2008).
Figure 1. Map of Sumatra showing the location where Grey-tailed Tattler observed in Bengkulu during the study (black square). Previous (offshore) records are indicated with a black triangle and black circle.
Figure 2. Grey-tailed Tattler on 9 October 2014 at Pantai Panjang beach, Bengkulu (©Riki Rahmansyah).
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