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180km SSW from Lake REFERENCES Goongarrie, and found it to be BURBIDGE, A.A. and FULLER P.J. brimming full with water. 1982. Banded Stilt Breeding at Lake Barlee, Western Australia. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Emu 82:212-216. HAYMAN, P, MARCHANT, J. and We would like to thank Kevin PRATER. T. 1986. SHOREBIRDS - Smith and Brad Santos of the An identification guide to the waders Severe Weather Section, Bureau of Meteorology, for researching of the world. weather patterns over Lake JENKINS. C.F.J. 1975. Nesting of Goongarrie during March and Banded Stilts at Lake Ballard. April 1999; and Yvonne Coate Western Australian Naturalist 13: who assisted with the preparation 94-95. of this paper. K.H. Coate would JOHNSTONE, R.E., STORR, G.M. also like to thank Yvonne Coate 1998. Handbook of Western for her efforts in alerting Australian Birds. Vol.1-non¬ members of the Western passerines Emu to Dollarbird. Australian Naturalists’ Club Western Australian Museum, camped 20 kms away at Goongarrie station homestead, to Perth. the possibility of a search when he KOLICHIS, N. 1976. New breeding failed to return from the lake records of the Banded Stilt in after 6 hours. We also thank Phil Western Australia. Western Stone for providing data on Australian Naturalist 13:114-119. Banded Stilt at Lake Kondinin. MINTON, C., PEARSON, G. and LANE, J. 1995. Banded Stilts do it again. Wingspan 5 (2): 13-15. 86 FROM FIELD AND STUDY Union (now Birds Australia) telephone hotline. Red-necked Phalaropes regularly The Readers’ Digest, 1986, Complete appearing on Rottnest - Over the Book of Australian Birds reports last few years Red-necked that only a few trickle on to Phalaropes (Phalaropus lobatus) Australia each year, arriving ... in have been regularly seen on September and leaving by April. Rottnest Island. Red-necked The first was not recorded until Phalaropes are an unusual 1962, near Melbourne. Saunders migratory wader to the south¬ and de Rebeira, 1993, Birds of west of Western Australia. They Rottnest also report that “Another were first recorded on Rottnest in rare visitor that is being recorded August 1979 by Roy Wheeler more frequently in south-western (Western Australian Bird Notes, No Australia is the Red-necked 13, 1980) which was probably the Phalarope. The latest sighting to first record for the south-west of date on Rottnest Island was in late WA (Ron Johnstone, pers. comm., August 1992, when a single bird 1994). was present on Government House Lake.” The first Red-necked Phalarope I saw was on 30 July 1994, possibly Hayman, Marchant and Prater, the earliest winter sighting of the 1987, Shorebirds an Identification to species in the south-west of WA. the Waders of the World report It was with eighteen Banded Stilts “Some females leave breeding at the western end of Pearse Lakes grounds (far north Asia, Europe (near where the old salt works and North America) in late June. were located) on Rottnest. The Vagrants have occurred in inland phalarope kept ducking its head South America, near Cape Town into the water and at the same (regular in recent years), Sri Lanka, time its tail popped up. At one Australia and New Zealand.” The stage it swam close to the shore Readers’ Digest explains that and stood while splashing itself “Conventional sexual roles are for about a minute. It flew briefly reversed in Phalaropes. The female after its washing session and then is larger and more brightly resumed swimming around and coloured than the male in feeding busily. It swam more breeding plumage. She conducts quickly than the stilts. It appeared displays and initiates courtship to be less than half the size of a and establishes the breeding stilt and could easily be territory. The male builds the nest overlooked. The following day - in a tussock of marsh grasses, the phalarope could not be seen at lined with plant matter - and that site. Further sightings of a incubates and rears the young on Red-necked Phalarope were made his own.” on other Rottnest lakes as well as My next sighting was of three at Little Parakeet Bay on Rottnest Red-necked Phalaropes, a female in the spring and summer of 1994/ in breeding plumage and two 95 as reported on the Royal birds in juvenile or eclipse Australasian Ornithologists plumage, on 9 October 1995 on 87