Over a quarter of the world population of wrybills at Lake Ellesmere now

With recent floods wrybills have grouped up en masse at Lake Ellesmere with in excess of 1200 birds at the lake now- enforcing the importance of Lake Ellesmere as a Wetland of International Importance

Rangitata floods

River flows during the wrybill monitoring season 2010- fortunately about 70% of the breeding effort was completed prior to the floods

Wrybill female from Rangitata River at Greenpark today

An "exile" from the floods on the Rangitata River which reached close to 1000 cumecs earlier this week there.

Juvenile wrybill at Greenpark Sands

Wrybills at Ellesmere today

Found a flock of 204 birds- but only five juveniles in the flock. Birds on the Greenpark Sands

Wrybill fledging 2010

Wrybill fledgling

A wrybill fledgling from the 2010 season. Fortunately the floods came through late this season giving wrybills, on many braided rivers, a chance to get good number of fledglings away.