Mating Painted Snipe on Ash Is., Hunter River estuary, NSW

["Bruce Roubin" <>]

G'day,

Not surprisingly I guess, the pair of painted snipe on Ash Is are mating. During a break in the rain Friday Dec 10 around 3.00pm, I was watching them standing and preening just behind the clump of sedge nearest to the road and wetland (about 100m from the road opp. the model plane airfield), when the female started chasing the male around in tight circles. Soon after, he briefly mounted her.

This all followed about 30 mins of feeding in the nearby wetland, to the right of the sedge plant.

I had found them initially, when they raised their heads in the long kikuyu to the front LHS of the trunk of the dead tree, a few  minutes after a raptor scare flushed most of the birds in the wetland and adjacent paddocks.

On return via Lenaghan, I found at least 45 Latham's snipe in the Main Swamp at Pambalong Nature reserve, across the causeway on the dead end Cedar Mill Rd, off Stockrington Rd.

 

Regards

Bruce Roubin