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Bird Sightings : Hebrides : Jack Snipe

 

Awaiting image for this species

 

Jack Snipe

(St Martins, Half-snipe)

Lymnocryptes minimus

Gaelic: Gobhrag-bheag

 

• Jack Snipe (St Martins, Half-snipe)
• Lymnocryptes minimus
• Gaelic: Gobhrag-bheag
• UK: 50,000 (winter) BTO (Arrive Sept - Nov, leaves Feb - Mar)
• WI: Scarce passage visitor (very small numbers recorded in most years) and winter visitor (very small numbers recorded in most years)
• Breeds: North Europe, North Asia, North Russia
• Winters: Europe (UK inc Western Isles), Mediterranean, Asia, Africa, India
• Habitat: lowland wetland areas with short vegetation: marshes, reedbeds, fenland, flooded meadows. Edges of estuaries, rivers, ditches, shallow lagoons
• Diet: Insects, snails, worms (some plant material & seeds) probing soft mud & foraging by sight
• Secretive starling-sized stocky wader. Approached: crouches low, very camouflaged. If almost trodden on flies at last minute. Flies low & quickly drops. (common snipe zig-zags then flies off high) Flight: yellow back stripes visible. Wings pointed & narrow.
  Mottled brown upperparts, pale below. Dark stripe through eye. Eyebrow stripe split in two. (no pale central crown stripe). Spring-like bounce when feeding.
• Max recorded age 9yrs 4mths
• Listen to a Jack Snipe (RSPB site) (Bird is silent in winter)
• Similar birds: Common Snipe
  

 

Common Snipe are about the size of Redshank, Jack Snipe are more like Starling-sized. Jack Snipe have much shorter bills than Common Snipe.

When there is more than one bird it is called a wisp of snipe or a walk of snipe .

See photographs of Jack Snipe on Stephen Round's web site

 

 

 

Jack Snipe in the Western Isles

Scarce passage visitor (very small numbers recorded in most years) and winter visitor (very small numbers recorded in most years)
Source: Outer Hebrides Bird Report (2001)

The chart below shows how abundant the Jack Snipe is during a month or when you are more likely to see it.

J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D

(Source: Outer Hebrides Birds Checklist)

 

Other local bird photographs

Sources of information for the bird sightings section

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