ajohn

Ivan, I think it is unlikely that the GSP was originally flagged with white only. I have previously corresponded with people from New Zealand (where white flags are used) and they reported that they have never flagged a GSP (which I think is rare there).

Your GSP may have had a very faded yellow flag (NW Australia), but probably the most likely is that this is a Chongming bird (black and white) which has lost the black flag. This was the final conclusion of the bird I saw last year, which I saw on 27th March and may even have been the same bird!

ajohn

The two Great Knot with unknown digits are RYN and YCR. I saw both on Saturday and have reported these. YCR is interesting because it was last seen in Australia (Broome) on 25th March, only 10 days before it was first reported in HK (on 4th April).

The last bird in post 9 (Curlew Sandpiper P1) is a Hong Kong-flagged bird (the white upper flag is slightly discoloured). This bird was last reported in Bohai Bay (northeast China) on 24th May 2013. We get good numbers of resightings of HK-flagged Curlew Sandpipers in Bohai Bay, which is clearly an important stopover for our birds (but is also under serious threat from development!)

ajohn

I have contacted the Australian Wader Studies Group about this bird. Fortunately the ring number is enough to know which individual is involved. "76141" was flagged on 22 July 2003 at Nene Valley in the south-east of South Australia. It was one year old at the time.
The bird is now 11 years old, and has presumably migrated each year between South Australia and Siberia - an impressive achievement for such a small bird!

We get very few reports of movements of stints, so this record is very useful. If anyone gets close views of a ringed stint it may be worth trying to get photos from several different angles to work out the full ring number, as was possible in this case. Congratulations to John and Wah jai for managing to get such close shots of this bird.

ajohn

The stint photo from 28/4 is interesting. The combination is actually orange over blue, which indicates that the bird was flagged in Tasmania, Australia. We get very few birds from Tasmania. This bird was present on the mudflat again this morning.