Sue and I sat over dinner in the Yunta Pub contemplating what we should do. We'd just found out from our friend Colin Rogers that four Australian Painted Snipe had been seen at a wetland near Adelaide not far from home just that morning and had been reported on E-Bird. We still had a week of holidays to go and were in spitting distance of our next birding destination in Danggali Conservation Park but only three hours drive from home. Would the birds hang around. Would we even know where to look if we tried. Should we change our plans and go for it? All of these questions we mulled over as we devoured our Chicken Schnitzels while watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on the front bar TV. Ah Saturday night in Yunta!
In the end we decided to sleep on it but I already had an inkling of what we should do. First thing in the morning we packed the car topped up the tank and headed straight down the road towards home. When in doubt always follow the number one rule in twitching.....Don't hesitate just go for it! As we travelled ever further south we found it strange that the general birding community where rather silent on the provenance of these rare wetland denizens. What should we make of that? With the advent of digital social media its easy to keep tabs on whats happening in the birding world as updates are immediate yet we were seeing no traffic at all to do with these birds. Surely a species as attractive and rare as an Australian Painted Snipe would garner a lot of attention? We thought the worst that people had been searching since dawn but not connecting with them. Had they flown the coop? All of these things play on your mind when you commit to a twitch.
Rather than pop in to home we opted to drive directly to the site and in a little over three hours we pulled up at the end of Whites Road adjacent to the wetlands the birds had been reported from. There were two 4WD's parked up already and we immediately thought "Birders" As we walked towards the first pond we saw two presumed birders up ahead of us and they turned left around the edge of the northern edge of the pond. We wondered if they knew where the birds where but opted not to pursue them in favour of looking over the second pond in from the road. Lots of birds here including several Freckled Duck which was nice to see. We carefully circumnavigated this pond checking the edges for the Snipe without luck. In reality we had no specific information where exactly the birds had been seen and Whites Road Wetlands is rather a large place. We headed towards the inlet pond near the trash rack scattering Black-tailed Native-hens before us as we went. This looked much better. Plenty of exposed mud and lots of rubbish around. We immediately thought of our experience with these birds in India where we were fortunate to have seen the closely related Greater Painted Snipe. Often found in areas overflowing with rubbish they seemed to thrive in the squalid conditions. A small patch of broken down sedge in the middle of a rubbish strewn mud flat seemed a likely place. We paid it careful scrutiny seeing no sign of the birds presence, but surely the birds couldn't hide in that? We circumnavigated the patch of sedge and just as we were about to do another circuit I thought I saw something...... a tiny patch of white that didn't quite fit. I got the scope on it and there in amongst the sedge and in perfect camouflage emerged the unmistakable shape of two Australian Painted Snipe the white "horse collars" gleaming in the light that had betrayed their presence. They were immediately aware of our presence as well and moved through the cover revealing all four birds. Three females and a single male...............fantastic. I managed to get a quick phone scoped image but knew I'd like to get some proper photos. I carefully stalked the birds while they were in cover and surprisingly they allowed me a close approach. Despite being obviously wary they seemed comfortable enough with my presence, so I took the shots and just as quickly retraced my steps leaving the birds in peace for others to come and see.
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| Three female and a single male Australian Painted Snipe |
Of course we had no idea whether the birds were going to hang around or not so we were keen to document them. Not only for our Big Year but also to document the record in case they did move on quickly.
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| Probably a sub adult female |
This species is so secretive and there is still so very little known about them. They seem to be a Spring/Summer migrant to the south-east of the country with most records during that period. There is some merit to believing they take advantage of the temporary food abundance available during inland flooding events. When these areas again dry out they disperse to wetter areas of the coast but there is no real pattern to their occurrence so when they do appear they're a big hit with the birding community. If I was to give any advice on how to search for them? Don't look in the pretty pristine wetlands for them but in the filthiest piece of muddy rubbish strewn mud hole you can find!! Half submerged shopping trolleys are almost a prerequisite!
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| A pair of Greater Painted Snipe in similar habitat we saw in India in 2016 |
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| A female Greater Painted Snipe near Delhi. They thrive in rubbish strewn environments |
We'd managed to get some great views and some nice photos of the birds and we were feeling pretty happy with ourselves. So we headed out towards the car but failed to find the other birders as they seemed to have left already. We went straight past a sign the Salisbury Council had erected near the second pond. It's as if the birds knew they were home! Once we were in the car and on our way I noticed a small passerine with a yellowish wingbar fly in to a nearby tree so I stopped. It was the Greenfinch Sue had been looking for all year, giving her a much needed catch up bird........excellent!
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| A successful twitch and decision vindicated |
With that we drove home before posting up on Facebook. Then the rush was on! We had alerted the greater community to these birds presence and at the time of writing lots of people have enjoyed these birds since as they've kindly stuck around. So our decision to twitch was vindicated. It doesn't always work out like that but this time we were glad it did. Now time to head back up to the Riverland and resume our journey in to Danggali Conservation Park. Look for that blog post soon
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