Once commonly referred to as goats of the sky, due to the ‘drumming’ noise produced by the male on warm spring evenings, snipe (gallinago gallinago) are medium-sized, wading skulking birds with short legs and long wings. The most obvious feature of the common snipe is a greatly elongated bill used to probe for invertebrate prey in the soft ground. Both sexes are mottled brown above, with paler buff stripes on the back, dark streaks on the chest, and pale under parts. Juvenile wing feathers are fringed with cream. The common snipe is a superbly camouflaged bird, most often seen fleeing erratically after being flushed from his or her concealed location. Their camouflage may enable snipe to remain undetected by hunters in marshland. During the breeding season, snipe inhabit moorland, and are best spotted on spring mornings when males can be heard giving their ‘bleating’ display. In winter months, look patiently around the edges of pools in well-vegetated wetlands.
According to RSPB snipe expert Sarah Blyth, the UK population of snipe has undergone moderate declines overall in the past 25 years, with particularly steep declines in lowland wet grassland, making it an ‘amber list’ species.