Great start to the 2016/17 season
September 15, 2016
Our first catch of the 2016/17 season over the last weekend has been a successful one. Opinions were mixed leading up to the catch: it has been a wet winter which might have meant that snipe wouldn’t need to return to Powling Street and Sandy Cove. Then there was more rain all Friday, building on these doubts. Conversely, there had been good numbers of snipe reported during the week (up to 15), and we had a years-worth of experience to call on!
Friday night was wet and raining, so the difficult decision was made to put nets up in the morning – difficult as it meant getting up at 3.40am so nets were ready for catching at 5.30am. At least the rain had stopped when the alarm rang, and three sets of paired nets were set up on the kikuyu grassland east of Powling Street wetlands. As dawn came a few snipe flew in, and one was briefly caught in the net, but it was a ‘zero-catch’ morning.
Saturday saw the weather improve, and we were able to set three nets in Sandy Cove at a reasonable time after dusk. Returning at 5am, everything seemed ideal for a good catch – almost no wind, nets over likely roosting areas, and so we waited…..At 6am the first snipe came in, and by 6.20am we had five birds safely in bags! It’s always a bit hard working out what’s happening in the dark, but one bird was caught directly in the net while the other four flushed into the nets as we approached (just as we’d planned).
Nets were dismantled, and then the birds were processed, including attachment of the vital geolocator. None of the birds was a recapture, but we now have 19 birds out there collecting data for us.
For those of you who are interested in participating, the next catch is scheduled for October 8-9th. If you’re keen to be involved before then, the first of the annual south-east Australian snipe counts is on this coming weekend, the 17-18th September. For more information on both events contact Birgita (b.hansen@federation.edu.au).
All photo with permission from Richard Chamberlain.