This morning Julie Moore and I went out to Bill Gunn Dam near Laidley
[SEQ] to have a dekko at the painted snipe. We got to see them, but
they were nowhere near where Andrew Stafford saw them on Wednesday.
Actually, we "found" them by wandering a third of the way round the lake
to where Bill Jolly and John ??? had set up a pair of scopes -
birdwatchers are like silver gulls. There was a pair of snipe about 5
metres from the shore in some low [10 cm] broad leaved weedy looking
vegetation round from the golf course end of the main dam wall [not too
far from a long narrow island running close by the shore]. Bill said
that area was where the snipe normally hung out.
Initially the snipe where mainly hidden in the vegetation as they
squatted with only part of the head of one visible. After about 10 mins
they decided to stand up giving us nice views of their backs and
flanks.
After we had all had a good look, and the other birdwatchers who had
been fruitlessly combing the other shore of the lake, Bill wandered over
in hope of getting a good photograph of the snipe. The snipe moved out
onto the mud, and it was interesting to see them teetering - like a
sandpiper.
Eventually they decided they had had enough of Bill's camera and flew
off - they spent about half a minute flying low and indirectly over the
lake before landing beside the lake in with a group of ducks, near where
we'd seen the plum-headed finches feeding on the grass seed, about half
way along the main wall.
For the atlas sheet, there were large numbers of grey teal and hard
heads, with a supporting cast of PB, maned and pink eared ducks, and the
odd family of swans. There were plenty of black winged stilts [with
juveniles] and a few marsh sandpipers.
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