Snipe bahaviour

I had a quick walk around Begola Wetlands (Ocean Grove) late this afternoon. Latham’s Snipe has been easy to see here since they returned at the end of August. At the moment there is no exposed mud around the main lagoon, but two berms at the western end of the reserve have shallow water and a little mud, and it’s easy to see Snipe around the edges of these, and occasionally well out in the open. Today an ultralight aircraft flew over slowly (not sure of the technical term, but it was suspended under a parachute, with a propeller behind the pilot’s harness). I guess the birds thought it was a huge raptor – the behaviour of different species was interesting. Silver Gulls and Masked Lapwings circled the reserve, calling loudly. Some of the Great Cormorants that had been on the bank joined the gulls and lapwings. Chestnut and Grey Teal all rafted up in the centre of the main lagoon, in open water – well over a hundred birds. Pacific Black Duck, Coots and Swamphen stayed where they were. Oddest of all, Snipe flew in circles around the reserve, very high, almost as high as the ultralight, but not close to it. One group had 8 or 9 birds, and a few others of 3 or 4 birds also flew very high. A few individual Snipe did the same thing. Is this usual behaviour for Latham’s Snipe when confronted with a huge raptor? I’ve only ever seen them flush low and fly a short distance before. Some of the birds today circled for 10-20 seconds or longer, and much higher than I’ve seen them fly and return to the same lagoon. They were higher than the Welcome Swallows and Lapwing, so probably at the very top of the circling mass of birds. Of course, I’d left my camera in the car! Russell Woodford Ocean Grove =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au http://birding-aus.org ===============================