2018年9月9日 星期日

Long Valley 9 Sep 2018 - first sniping in this season

Early fall is good for sniping in HK especially there are much more Swinoe's/Pintail Snipe than Common Snipe. This morning was cool, not very hot for birding so we started our first sniping section this season.

Not a bad day as we flushed 20 more Swinoe's/Pintail Snipe but sadly none was safely identified (unlike the first Pintail Snipe we took years ago). From the view and the poor photos below, we believed around 80% of the snipe of today are Swinhoe's rather than Pintail.

Surprisingly no reed or grasshopper warbler today, the other noticeable migrants were a single Eurasian Hobby and Eurasian Wryneck (should be a Plaintive Cuckoo, Oops.....)

Rock Dove - best picture of the day. Interestingly we don't have many photos of this species even Tung and I saw uncountable Rock Dove in many countries.

adult Eurasian Hobby, too late when I got my camera ready.

Swin/tail Snipe A of today, the lack of obvious white trailing edge could tell this is not a Common Snipe. Unlike Taiwan, snipe in Hong Kong always go high and far when flushed, no matter which species. You can check more in Steve's blog (here: http://birdingpage.blogspot.com/2018/08/acute-snipe-sickness.html ), he got plenty good identifiable Swinhoe's Snipe photos.

Swin/tail Snipe B, this one didn't show any toe projection in this angle, a feature of Latham's Snipe but as Steve mentioned, Latham's start their primary molt until arriving wintering ground in Australia or New Zealand, while this one already molt the inner primaries.

Swin/tail Snipe B, as the tail is long, and the inner primary is new, we would guess this is a Swinhoe's.

Swin/tail Snipe B and C, blurred tail pattern, maybe we will get much better shots when we have the Nikon 500mm PF? The very white outertail and tips of central rectrices, also favor Swinhoe's, and the shape looked like unpin (?)

Swin/tail Snipe D, the toe projected more, a pro Pintail feature.

Swin/tail Snipe E, not a clear shot and strange tail, but looked like more pro Swinhoe's.

Swin/tail Snipe E, same as above

So to conclude, we still cannot tick the Swinhoe's Snipe safely and we need to improve our skill, gear, and also knowledge for snipe ID!


沒有留言:

張貼留言