Gallinago hardwickii

Latham's Snipe at Fyshwick, ACT

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Identification history

	Gallinago hardwickii	3 Oct 2018	natureguy
	Gallinago hardwickii	2 Oct 2018	roymcd

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Significant sighting

ArcherCallaway noted:

4 Oct 2018

There has been a leg flagging project going on at the wetlands for the last 2 summers. Some birds have geolocators attached (like this one), to hopefully record their full migration between Australia and Japan. We are looking to try and recapture these this season to retrieve the geolocators and download their data. All resightings are valuable, and further confirm that they return to the same site every year. If you can get a photo where the number on the leg flag is legible, that would be even better. Anyone who does will probably get celebrity status at the wetlands!

User's notes

Tags on its legs. Flew to the other side.

8 comments

ArcherCallaway wrote:

4 Oct 2018

This is great news, and further confirms they return to their site of capture (unless it is a port fairy bird). Hopefully we can catch this one and get its full migration track

Illilanga wrote:

4 Oct 2018

Ryu, do I get bonus points if one with a flag comes to our wetland? ;)

ArcherCallaway wrote:

4 Oct 2018

Most certainly! Have you ever had snipe at your wetland?

roymcd wrote:

4 Oct 2018

Thanks Ryu for the info. Mmm I don't think my camera has enough grunt to get a number, unless a Snipe parks itself in front of a hide for easy viewing. Fortuitously, the burning of the grass at JBra Wetlands has made it much much easier to photograph their legs, so I guess someone with a more powerful camera will get a definitive photo in the coming days, complete with leg number for everyone to enjoy.
Although I'm not involved with the tagging, I'm wondering whether it would be possible to use a different coloured tag for every new tagging season(?), so people could see at a glance which year an individual was tagged???
Cheers, Roy.

Illilanga wrote:

4 Oct 2018

Ryu, yes we have had a snipe at the wetland. The bird flushed out in front of me as I was walking and I was so excited I forgot to take a photo with my camera, even though I had it with me! Nicki Taws had suggested it was a suitable habitat.

roymcd wrote:

4 Oct 2018

Thinking about this a little more, I'm wondering whether you could colour code the tags to the tagging location? For example, birds tagged at Jbra Wetlands always get a red tag, birds at Port Fairy always get a blue tag etc???

ArcherCallaway wrote:

4 Oct 2018

That's great to hear Sandra.
Roy - Yes the flag combinations for migratory shorebirds are based on location. Each state/country has a different combination, a concerted system throughout the East Asian–Australasian Flyway. As flagging hadn't taken place in the ACT until now, we are now stuck with the same as Victoria (single orange flag) as that is what was used when the project extended here. To determine the year, we would need the number on the flag. In Japan, they have been using blue leg flags - as far as I know none of those have been resighted in Australia, perhaps due to a high proportion of them being young birds.

roymcd wrote:

4 Oct 2018

Thanks Ryu, very informative :-)

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