15/02/2025
Greater Painted Snipe (African) - a still frame from a video capture.
We came across these guys right next to the road, before dawn. At first they were on alert but they soon settled down as we kept quiet and they went about their business feeding, preening and bathing.
I took a few photos but knew the low light would be terrible. For some reason cameras are able to capture fairly decent video under darker lighting conditions where photos fail - hence the still frames.
There is a related species in Australia named Australian Painted-snipe, but after having the opportunity to observe two pairs of these birds closely in Africa last month, I think behaviourally they are like chalk and cheese - even though they look very similar.
The first thing to note is that with Greater Painted Snipe, they are usually found in pairs. Not so for the Australian species - which can be in small aggregates of a few birds to larger groups of 20 or more.
Having talked to a few people in Africa about this species, anyone who's seen it says it is far easier to locate than the Australian species. I guess Greater Painted Snipe is conservationally more secure. Estimates are that there may be as few as about 250 Australian Painted Snipe left in Australia - and they could be just about anywhere on the continent. Apart from being far and few between, the Australian species is mostly crepuscular (active at dawn and dusk) and nocturnal (active at night0 and spends daytime sheltering under dense shrubs.
With the second pair of Greater Painted Snipe we found the lighting conditions were fantastic, but the positioning of the car meant that I couldn't really get photos or video. Nevertheless I was able to watch closely through binoculars and the two birds spent a good 20+ minutes in courtship before mating and eventually flying off. I learned a great deal about this species from this experience.
Firstly, you may have played back calls of "Australian Painted Snipe" using phone apps for Australian birds, but you may not know that those recordings are actually of this species - Greater Painted Snipe. There are no verified audio recordings of the Australian species.
With the courting pair it was the male that called. When he did so, he stood motionless in a posture to support calling, save for the sides of his neck and his throat puffing in and out rhythmically - but without correlating with the calls he was giving. It looked more to me like he was engaging in circular breathing - the way someone might when they are playing digeridoo.
The female, for her part, seemed to basically ignore the male (as far as this human could tell) while he was calling. Nevertheless, it must have been successful because they did mate soon after.
I took copious audio recordings of his calls. He gave three different types of vocalisation and I think two of these are found on the Australian apps. Indeed we first located the pair because we heard their call. As it turns out, we were probably some 50 to 75 metres from where they were - his call carrying, at volume, far further than you might expect if you'd only be familiar with the audio recordings alone.
There is one other species in the genus - South American Painted Snipe, which remains on my bucket list. Shorebirds are the group of birds that most excite me and experiencing two pairs of Greater Painted Snipe that close for that long was a massive highlight to the trip. I have now observed this species in Africa (Kruger Park, South Africa) and Asia (Taiwan) and have observed Australian Painted Snipe numerous times in New South Wales (Australia).
Can't wait until I get to see any of these species again :)
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