The best place to watch shorebirds in Celebes Coast.
In addition to the waders, other common large birds of the coast include the white-bellied sea eagle (Heliacetus leucogaster), the osprey (Pandion haliatus) and Brahminy kite (Haliastur Indus) all of which fish in the shallow waters and scavenge food along undisturbed beaches. There also various stork, herons, egrets and ducks seen around the shore and roosting sites for seeing these birds (Uttley 1986). The milky stork (Ibis cinereus) is of particular interest because until a few years ago it was though to be quite rare. Large numbers have now been found in Sumatra (Silvins et al. 1985) and they have also been observed, some in breeding plumage, in the Tiworo straits between Muna island and the mainland of southeast Celebes (L. Clayton pers. Comm..), near Ujungpandang and in the Cenrara River delta (Uttley 1986).Such fish-eating birds might occasionally encounter venomous sea snakes in the shallow waters of mudflats. One species, the yellow-bellied sea snake (Pelamis platurus), is the most widely distributed species of snake, being found from south Siberia to Tasmania, and from the west coast of America to the Indian Ocean. It is about I m long and is often found near the water surface and eats mainly rabbitfish and mulletlike fish (voris and voris 1983). Young, hand-reared with and without their tails. The tails of sea snakes are very distinctive. The birds were most frightened by the yellow-bellied sea snake, even if its tail had been removed. This indicates a genetically-based response; they could not have learned that the snake was dangerous from experience (Caldwell and Rubinoff 1983).
Bibliography
Grant, . 1984. sediment microtopography and shorebird foranging. Mar. ecol. Prog.
Barnard, C.J. and Thompson, D.B.A. 1985. Gulls and Plovers: the ecology of mixed species feeding groups. London Croom Helm.
Uttley, J. 1986. survey of Sulawesi Selatan to asses the status of wetlands and to identify key sites for breeding and migratory waterbirds. Preliminary report, Kuala Lumpur
Voris, H.K. and voris, H.h. 1983. Feedign strategies in marine snakes : an analysis of evolutionary, morphological, behavioural and ecological relationships. Amer. Zool.
Caldwell, G.S. and Rubinoff, R.W. 1983. Avoidance of venomeous sea snakes by naïve herons and egrets . Auk 100: 195-198