Clive Minton and members of the Victorian Wader Studies Group banded 61
Latham's Snipe at Belmont Common on 20/21 October. 19 birds were
captured on the Friday night, and 42 the next morning, plus one bird was
recaptured (it had lost 8 grams overnight). Of these 6 or less were
juveniles, which seems a fairly low proportion, but I'm guessing as I
don't know the normal demographics of Latham's Snipe. I'm not sure if
there is much in the literature on this.
Clive suggested this may be the largest banding of Snipe ever in
Australia - it is his own 'p.b.' This area looks like being an important
area for Snipe monitoring in the future, as it always has wet areas,
unlike most of the other well-known Snipe haunts in the region.
It also has a Sizzler's just across the road for the added comfort of
banders...
Jo Chadwick (a birding-aus reader) was one of the VWSG members present
throughout the banding, and should be able to add other info if anyone
requries it. (Sorry for beating you to it with this posting Jo -
especially as I just turned up for the last hour when the sun was up!)
Russell Woodford
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