Wader mystery revisited

I posted a photo of two small wading birds, photographed at Mungalla Station near Ingham Qld, a fews weeks ago (see Mungalla Station part 2).

In this post, I had assumed the bird on the far left was a Red-necked Stint and wondered what the apparently smaller bird just to its right might be. The sizes can be judged relative to the Sharp-tailed Sandpipers on the right.

Since then, I have re-examined the original images and run them past a few colleagues and the longer we look at them the less sure we are.

The main problem is that the legs are not black. I initially passed this off as due to mud but closer examination makes this questionable. The legs appear to be a dull yellow. As you can see from the image above, the late afternoon light gives an exaggerated yellow in the photograph so I went back to the original raw files and neutralised the colour-balance. Here are the only 4 images I took of these two birds with no other manipulation (apart from colour balance neutralised).

Click on the images to show full size (100% resolution of original images, heavily cropped)

And here's the "smaller" bird by itself taken just a few minutes before the sequence above.

So, any suggestions for what species they may be?

Update 25 Nov:
Thanks to all those who emailed me on this. Consensus of opinion is that the two birds are Red-necked Stints, most likely first year birds with worn plumage (it's a long way from Siberia your first time!)

Mungalla Station (Part 1)

After a brilliant morning at Tyto Wetlands (see Part 1 and Part 2) and some great afternoon workshops, we gathered at Mungalla Station for some early evening birding and BBQ dinner.

Mungalla Station is a cattle property located approx. 12 km east of Ingham. The property is owned by the Nywaigi Aboriginal Land Corporation and managed by the Mungalla Aboriginal Business Corporation. Their mandate to "...improve the economic and social position of our people..." is being achieved through property management and cultural and eco-tourism.

The wetland on the property is a treasure being brought back to life by careful environmental management.

Mungalla Wetlands

In the 90 minutes we had exploring the wetland, we found a variety of wading birds including Masked Lapwing, Red-necked Stint, Red-kneed and Black-fronted Dotterel, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Curlew Sandpiper, Marsh Sandpiper and Latham Snipe. All were too far away for any good photography so I concentrated on the many birds flying overhead.

Brolga, Mungalla Wetlands

Magpie Goose, Mungalla Wetlands

Several small terns were fishing right in front of a group of photographers

but their quick movement and the poor light made it difficult to identify them with any certainty. These are the best photographs I could manage.

Whiskered Tern, Mungalla Station

I am not 100% convinced but the best identification I can come up with is Whiskered Tern. The only alternative is that they are White-winged Black Tern. WWBTs are northern hemisphere summer breeders that migrate to Australia in our spring. Early arrivals may retain some breeding colouration. I am not familiar enough with the changes of these birds as they move into and out of their breeding colouration. These birds have retained the red legs and bill there is no evidence of black plumage so I think it unlikely they are WWBTs.

As the sun was setting we walked back to the designated pick up spot where a flock of Nankeen Night-Herons were roosting.

Nankeen Night-Heron, Mungalla Station

Mungalla Station