Plains-wanderers: rare copulating footage

Hello Chris Wood, Cornell University¹s ebird project leader, took some video of a pair of plains-wanderers mating while he and colleagues were out with me on 11 October 2013. I have put a link to the video on the latest news page of our website. We¹ve seen a lot of mating displays over the years but never plains-wanderers actually copulating. This is a rare, if not unique, piece of footage. http://www.philipmaher.com/LatestNews1htm.htm It¹s been the best breeding season for plains-wanderers on the Hay Plain for about ten years even though rainfall was well below average and spring was particularly dry. We did however have the best winter rain for a long time, followed by a couple of inches in early December. As you¹ll see in the video, the habitat looks ideal with more herbage (wildflowers) than grass. We found three clutches of young and witnessed one of those clutches of four small chicks grow to independence and a couple of independent young of the other two clutches. On 28 December¹s Plains-wanderer Weekend, we saw a pair doing a courtship display and past observations would suggest that this pair may have been the parents of one of the successful clutches recorded earlier in the season. All this gives us hope the species might recover its numbers. Cheers Philip Maher Deniliquin +61 3 58813378 Australian Ornithological Services Pty Ltd PO Box 385 South Yarra 3141 Victoria Australia Tel: + 61 3 98204223 Mobile: 0417310200 http://www.philipmaher.com http://www.youtube.com/user/AOS3141 _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org