Common snipe

Voice

On flushing a hoarse, drawn-out scaap, like tearing cloth. Territorial birds call a monotonous chip-per chip-per from a post. Best known is the drumming display: in dives the male spreads the outer tail feathers so they vibrate, producing a bleating hum, heard March to June and above all at dusk.

Identification

A medium, dumpy snipe with a very long straight bill about twice the head length. The head is boldly striped dark and cream, with a pale crown stripe, dark lateral crown and pale supercilium. The back is dark with four cream braces, the flanks barred, the belly white. In flight, pointed wings and a narrow white trailing edge to the inner wing; seasonal plumages differ little.

Confusion species

Jack Snipe is the only real confusion: much smaller, clearly shorter-billed, with no pale crown stripe but a split supercilium, and a dark purple-and-green glossed back. It also flushes only at your feet, silently and straight, and drops in again at once, where Common Snipe towers away rasping and zigzagging.

Habitat

Wet sedge-rich grassland, fen meadows, bogs, damp dune slacks and soft muddy margins with cover. Breeds where the soil stays probeable and tussocks give structure. Outside the breeding season on ditch banks, shallow floods, rice fields and waterlogged pasture, always close to something to hide in.

Range and movements

Breeds throughout northern and central Europe; in the Netherlands it is now confined to the last wet reserves in the peat meadows, the Wadden district and stream valleys. Large numbers from northern Europe and Russia pass through and winter, Iberia included, where rice fields, dehesa pools and river plains can hold many birds.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

In October or November walk slowly along the edge of a shallow flood or a ditch in the middle of the day; snipe sit tight and flush only at a few metres. For the display, come to a wet reserve at dusk in late April and listen for the bleating hum passing overhead.

Conservation status

As a breeder in the Netherlands and western Europe it has declined steeply through drainage, lowered water tables and intensive grassland management, and it now nests almost only in reserves. As a passage and winter bird it remains common. Hunting in southern Europe and the continued drying of marshes are the main pressures.