painted snipe

["Julian Robinson" <>]

Harvey – a couple of pics attached that might be useful.  I had a go at working it out myself but am way out of my depth on plumage variations so will wait for informed opinion. One pic shows that the bird under discussion is clearly smaller than the other assumed adult female, this was consistent across all my pics.  The other shows the reddish patch at the back of the head/neck that I thought was diagnostic, but after reading 1½ pages of hanzab on plumage I’m no wiser as to difference betw male “hindneck vermiculated brown-grey and dark brown” and female “hindneck has varying, sometimes large, rufous patch in centre, feathers of hindneck rufous with dark-brown tips… that can be lost with wear”.  It doesn’t look vermiculated to me.  Given the number of cameras there, between us all we should have enough pics for diagnosis.

 

Not helpful in this discussion but fascinating to me was one shot where the female stretched a beautiful wing. 

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozjulian/6177306589

 

I can’t work out how the visible closed wing can vary so much in amount of pattern shown, the bird under discussion shows none of this with its wing closed while books suggest that a male should show pattern?

 

I just got your and G’s posts, it’s that pale wing spotting that is what I’m discussing above.

 

Julian

 

From: Harvey Perkins [
Sent: 25 September 2011 06:07
To: Canberra Birds
Subject: [canberrabirds] painted snipe

 

After looking at some of the photos of the painted snipe I got last night, it looks to me like there is an adult female and an immature female, rather than the female/male pair I think we all assumed. Will need to have a closer look through HANZAB and other references when I get back from this morning's National Arboretum survey...

 

Harvey

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