Bar-tailed godwit with a problem?

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Meave
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Bar-tailed godwit with a problem?

Saw this bar-tailed godwit at Manly boat harbour - can't work out what all the feathers on his underbody are. Looks like a growth?

Araminta
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Hi Meave, nice to hear from you. It does look like a big growth, poor bird.I couldn't think of anything else.

M-L

Holly
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I asked BirdLife Australia's Shorebirds 2020 manager to take a look. He thinks that it isn't anything specific to godwits or indeed to shorebirds but is likely to be a cancerous growth.

al
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Unless you have more photos of the bird, it could just be pooing :wink

Waterbirds do big ones.smiley

Looks very shiny for a growth.

Cheers,

al

Meave
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Not just pooing, quite a few photos from different angles over a few minutes - he was walking around a fiar bit, but not really with the other birds.

Meave

al
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Meave, then it might be a prolapsed cloaca.

Not uncommon in birds.

Cheers,

al

Woko
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It looks like a metal object to me.

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