TASMANIAN FIELD NATURALISTS' CLUB BULLETIN P 
CSIRO BAND RECOVERED IN CHINA 
History was made in June when the CSIRO 
administered Australian 
Bird-Banding Scheme 
received its first bird 
band back from the People's 
Republic of China. The 
return of the band from a 
curlew sandpiper, Calidris 
ferruginea, may be a 
prelude to the recovery of 
more bands from China, 
which lies in the migratory 
path of a number of species 
in which the bird-banding 
scheme has an interest. 
The recovery of band No.040- 
71148 from China has elated 
the scheme's Officer-in- 
Charge, Mr. David Purchase, 
and his colleagues from the Division of Wildlife 
Research at Gungahlin. Mr. Purchase has been 
waiting a long time for the opportunity to place 
a coloured pin, representing a band recovery, 
inside the blank area of China on his large wall 
map of the world. 
The breakthrough for the bird-banding scheme came 
with the receipt at Gungahlin of a letter bearing 
a Chinese stamp and written in Chinese. Translated 
it was found to be from a worker named Wu Kuei- 
Ch'uan, a member of the No. 10 production team in 
a rural commune in Kuangtung Province, not far from 
Canton. Mr. Wu said the curlew sandpiper had been 
caught in the fields along with several others. It 
was seriously injured, and he had attempted to nurse 
it back to health after finding the band on its leg. 
However, despite his efforts it had died. The bird 
was recovered on 14 May 1978, about 15 months after 
being banded on Kooragang Island near Newcastle 
NSW by Mr. Frederick van Gessel. 
