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Pantanal Snipe | Gallinago paraguaiae
Zuid-Amerikaanse snip | Becasina sudamericana
The Pantanal Snipe is the resident snipe of the wet savannas and marshes of South America. In the Caribbean it occurs only on Trinidad, at the northern edge of its range. It was formerly treated as a subspecies of Common Snipe and later lumped with Magellanic and Puna Snipes; most lists now treat it as a separate, monotypic species. The Spanish name becasina sudamericana reflects the older, broader concept.
Voice
When flushed, a short, rasping scraik. In display flight the male circles high and makes shallow dives in which the spread outer tail feathers produce a humming, bleating sound. Repeated ticking calls are given from the ground or a post.
Recording: Paul Lenrumé — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
26–30 cm, stocky, with short legs and a very long, straight bill. Upperparts dark brown with black and buff streaks, with four pale stripes running down the back. The head shows a pale crown stripe between two dark bands, a pale supercilium and a dark eye-stripe. Neck and breast are streaked brown, belly and underwing mostly white, the flanks barred. The tail shows rufous with a black band. The sexes are alike; females are heavier on average.
Confusion species
Wilson's Snipe Gallinago delicata, a winter visitor from North America that also reaches Trinidad, is hardly separable in the field. A snipe singing or displaying in the northern summer is almost certainly the South American species; in winter a silent bird cannot be identified with certainty. Short-billed and Long-billed Dowitchers Limnodromus griseus and L. scolopaceus are greyer, show a white wedge up the back and feed in flocks on open mud.
Habitat
Wet grassy savannas, freshwater marshes with low vegetation, flooded pastures and rice fields. It feeds by probing deep into soft mud, mainly for worms and insect larvae. The nest is well hidden in a tussock of grass or sedge on damp ground.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Within the region only on Trinidad, where it is scarce and local in wet savannas, rice fields and marshes; its status there is poorly documented. Not recorded on Tobago or the other islands. Outside the region throughout most of South America east of the Andes, from Colombia, Venezuela and the Guianas to Argentina and Uruguay, scarce in the Amazon basin.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Chances are best in the wet season, when singing or displaying birds can be heard over wet grassland and rice fields on Trinidad. A snipe that flushes late, zigzags away and gives a rasping call is soon out of sight; in the winter half of the year it may also be Wilson's Snipe.
Conservation status
Not threatened; the global population is considered stable. On Trinidad its occurrence depends on wet savannas and flooded grassland, which are shrinking through drainage and development.
Scientific name
Gallinago paraguaiae | (Vieillot, 1816)
Vieillot described the species in 1816 as Scolopax Paraguaiae; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Gallinago was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. Gallinago is New Latin for a snipe, from Latin gallina 'hen' and the suffix -ago 'resembling'. paraguaiae means 'of Paraguay', where Azara described the bird. The specimen the first description was based on came from Paraguay.