It’s been absolutely riveting to follow Marcelina over the past ten days. She is now 2142 kilometres from her spring and early summer home, with behaviour akin to a north-south/winter-summer migration strategy. Her previous fixes were from the Goyder Lagoon in SA, back in March, and with Gloria’s recent fixes from north of Birdsville, we’d thought that perhaps they’d both settle down for a winter in the recently flooded channel country. However, the urge to push north appears to be strong. First, Marcelina flew another 700 km up to the Barkly Tableland in the NT, 1655 km from where we caught her in January near Balranald.
Now, she’s pushed another 527 kms northwest, currently on the Newcastle Creek between Daly Waters and Tennant Creek! This is incredible to witness. Her behaviour is much like that of a regular long distance migrant, chasing warmth, with stopovers along a flyway. Is she going to stay put, or perhaps continue the north-west trajectory, heading to the coast or Kimberley? Nobody knows. Meanwhile, our last fixes from Gloria were on May 4th where she remained on Glengyle Station, between Bedourie and Birdsville. Will she follow a similar pattern and continue northward as well? These are our first detailed insights into the movement patterns of APS and we couldn’t be happier with the results.
Over the past five months, we’ve had only two APS sites reported nationally, each with one bird (https://paintedsnipe.com.au/
