Since 1986 he has been co-leader of the New Zealand Wader Study Group (NZWSG). Unravelling the Bar-tailed Godwit and Red Knot migration stories has been a major part of the Group's work.

 

The NZWSG is part of the Pukorokoro Miranda Naturalists' Trust (PMNT), which has been very active in promoting waders to the general public and Adrian has been on the Trust’s executive council since 1985. He helped establish the sister site relationship with the Yalu Jiang National Nature Reserve in China in 2004 and was involved in surveys at Yalu Jiang for ten years.

 

His overseas involvement in waders has taken him on expeditions to NW Western Australia three times, Japan in 1994 as the sole representative from New Zealand at a workshop launching the concept of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. The Gulf of Carpentaria three times. The Bohai Sea in China twice, South Korea for the Saemangeum Shorebird Monitoring Project in 2006-2008. The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska in 2005 and 2007 to help with studies of Bar-tailed Godwit, Red Knot and other waders. North Korea in 2009 with two others from the PMNT to survey waders on the Yellow Sea coast. He led further surveys annually between 2015-2019 to survey other North Korean coastal areas. The 2017 survey also included training Koreans in bird banding methods and undertaking the first ever bird banding in that country.

 

In New Zealand, he has been involved in wader studies throughout the country and the Chatham Islands.

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