Common Snipe
Gallinago gallinago
Taxon biology 4
Common snipe like water and mud. With their long bills, they dig in the ground for worms and small crustaceans. In order to attract a female, male snipes must do their very best. They will fly more than a hundred meters upwards, after which they let themselves practically fall out of the sky. Common snipe are also called fantail snipe. This name comes from the way they spread their tail feathers when 'falling out of the sky'. A distinctive tweeting sound, called drumming, is made by the wind whistling through this fantail. The ladies on the ground find this very attractive. Snipe nests consist of a small hollow in the ground, filled with marram grass and leaves. Both males and females care for the chicks, although each have their own group.
Conservation status 5
Human development of wetlands has displaced migrating shorebirds, including the Common Snipe. This development includes swamp drainage, farming, and canals. The result has concentrated more birds at undeveloped foraging sites, producing overpopulation and overfeeding. Research has shown however, that manmade wetlands projects can produce suitable foraging grounds, and even makes up for sites lost to development (Twedt, Nelms, Rettig, and Aycock, 1998).
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
Habitat 6
The Common Snipe can be found in open areas with enough low vegetation to provide cover. These areas include marshes, canals, stream banks, bogs, and wet meadows, and even Arctic tundra. Nests are generally a grass-lined hollows in wet meadows, or marsh (Burton and Burton, 1970; Peterson, 1961).
Terrestrial Biomes: tundra ; savanna or grassland ; forest ; scrub forest
Sources and Credits
- (c) Agustín Povedano, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://www.flickr.com/photos/decadiz/6921121739/
- (c) Alpsdake, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Gallinago_gallinago_a1.JPG
- (c) Alpsdake, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Gallinago_gallinago_wing.JPG
- (c) Copyright Ecomare, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/22758953
- (c) The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/31395596
- (c) The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/31395589
