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Great Snipe

Great Snipe

Gallinago media

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The Great Snipe is a robust, well-camouflaged wader that breeds in wet meadows and marshes of north-eastern Europe and western Siberia and winters in tropical Africa. Bulkier than the Common Snipe, with a shorter-looking bill, it shows white tail sides that males flaunt at their communal display grounds. It has declined because of habitat loss and hunting and is listed as Near Threatened.

Did you know?

  • Great Snipes can fly non-stop for thousands of kilometres at high speed – one bird reached an altitude of about 8,700 m.
  • It was described by John Latham in 1787.

Voice

Song

About the species

Identification

A mottled brown, well-camouflaged wader; the spots on the underparts are smaller than those on the back. It is stockier than Common Snipe, in size between Common Snipe and Woodcock. It shows white tail corners and white-bordered wing bars in flight. The call is a low, weary “gaah”, and the display song an odd, bubbling hiss.

Family

Scolopacidae

Size

Medium (thrush)

Colours

brown, black, white, grey

About the habitat

Wet meadows, coastal meadows and marshes with short vegetation, often in slightly drier patches than those used by the Common Snipe; winters in African grasslands.

Diet

Mainly earthworms and insects, probed from soft ground among the bases of grasses; occasionally plant material.

Behaviour

Wary and hard to spot; when flushed it flies straight and low before dropping back into cover. In spring males gather at dusk on leks, puffing out their chests, fanning their white-sided tails and jumping while making rattling, clicking and whistling sounds. The female alone incubates about four eggs for 22–24 days and raises the precocial young. It is famous for long, non-stop migration flights.

Sources

Photo: christoph_moning, CC BY 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Great Snipe (Gallinago media), Åre, Jämtland, Sweden 15.jpg

Sound: Robert Petersen, XC994704, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/994704

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions + Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0; Wikipedia: CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_snipe

See also