Memorandum to:         The Director of Birds Australia

 

From:                          Birds Australia Rarities Committee (BARC)

 

Date:                            23rd January 2007

 

Voting Members:         Mike Carter                   Andrew Silcocks

                                    Rohan Clarke                 Glenn Holmes

                                    John Hatch                    Jamie Matthew

                                    Tony Palliser                 Niven McCrie

                       

Cc.                               Ron Johnstone              

 

 

 

Submission No 478:  Pin-tailed Snipe Gallinago stenura Broome, WA, 19th February 1998. Submitted by: Chris Hassell and Danny Rogers.

 

 

Verdict:  Accepted

 

 

A belated submission of a Pin-tailed Snipe Gallinago stenura located at the Broome Water Treatment Plant on the 16th February 1998.  The bird was weak and unable to fly any distance and was subsequently taken into care. It was diagnosed as suffering from botulism and treated accordingly. Rehabilitation was successful, and within 7 days the bird had recovered and was released at Lake Campion, a fresh water lake 53 km east of Broome. Release at the original capture site was deemed inappropriate because of the risk of the bird contracting botulism again.

 

Identification focuses primarily on the tail. Initially when the bird was found the tail feathers were missing most likely due to natural moult. Fortunately, by the time of release, the tiny outer tail feathers had regrown and this allowed confident identification. The bird revealed 28 tail feathers. This feature is in the range for Pin-tailed (24-28) but above that for Swinhoe’s (18-26), Common (12-18) and Latham’s (14 -18). The outer 7 tail feathers were very narrow with dark brown rachis and mostly brown inner and outer vanes. However the tips were white and the inner vanes of the 4 outer feathers had varying amounts of white.

 

Measurements in Pin-tailed and Swinhoe’s Snipe are not diagnostic and show almost complete overlap (Leader & Carey 2003). The moult was 010 i.e. it had 10 worn primaries. This feature showed that the bird must have been in its first Australian summer, a first year bird, Banders age category 1.

 

Based on this information members voted unanimously in favour of acceptance. This is the second record of this species to be accepted by BARC.

 

 

Selected Bibliography:

 

·          BARC Case No. 473 (Unpublished).

·          Beaman, M. & Madge, S., (1998)., The Handbook of Bird Identification for Europe and the Western Palearctic, Princeton, New Jersey.

·          Cramp, S & Simmons, K. (Eds) (1983). Birds of the Western Palearctic, Vol 3 Waders to Gulls. Oxford University Press

·          Hayman, P., Marchant, J. and Prater, T., (1986), Shorebirds: An Identification Guide to Waders of the World. Croom Helm.Higgins, P.J. Davies S.J.J.F. (eds) (1996).

·          Johnstone, R. E. & Storr, G. M. (1998), Handbook of Western Australian Birds Vol 1 Non-Passerines (Emu to Dollarbird), Western Australian Museum, Perth.

·          Leader. P. J., and Carey. G. J. (2003), ‘Identification of Pintail Snipe and Swinhoe’s Snipe’, British Birds 96, 178 – 198.

 

 

 

 

 

Tony Palliser

Chairman, Birds Australia Rarities Committee