Each summer, Latham’s snipe, a small migratory bird, travels from Japan to Southern Australia.
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The 8,000km journey is no easy feat for the bird which weighs about 200 grams and is around 30cm long and just what they do while they’re here is still a bit of a mystery.
Local birdwatchers are working to protect native bird species such as the Latham’s Snipe by participating in three counts during the Spring-Summer season.
The final count for the 2018-19 season falls in this January school holiday period and BirdLife Southern Highlands (BLSH) have called out for volunteers to help undertake counts at the Bowral Street Reserve this month.
Since 2015, the results obtained from counts at sites in Bowral have been fed into a National Latham’s Snipe Research Project, co-ordinated by Dr Birgita Hansen, who is based at the Southern Cross University at Ballarat in Victoria.
Dr Hansen not only coordinates volunteer survey groups from right across eastern Australia, including teams that monitor key sites in the ACT, southern Victoria and Tasmania, but she also deploys Geo-locators and satellite tracking equipment.
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On Saturday, January 12, spare an hour or so to help BLSH members undertake counts at the Bowral Street Reserve which some researchers believe may be an established feeding ground, complementing the main local roosting ground discovered at the Southern Highlands Botanic Gardens.
Volunteering will require a good level of fitness as the grass on the reserve is very long and matted.
If anyone would like more information or are prepared to volunteer to be part of this Citizen Science Project, they should contact Col at liaison_blsh@birdlife.org.au
Dr Hansen will be a keynote speaker at the BIGNet Meeting hosted in Moss Vale by BirdLife Southern Highlands in April, 2019. Birding groups from all over NSW will be represented when speakers will address the issue of threatened habitats.