Common snipe Gallinago gallinago

Identification Tips:

• Length: 9 inches
• Stocky, short-legged, pointed-winged shorebird
• Explosive takeoff when flushed, rapid zigzag flight
• Very long, straight bill
• Legs olive
• Head patterned with alternating dark and pale stripes
• Pale breast with darker spots and bars
• Strongly patterned back with several buffy, longitudinal stripes
• Rusty brown rump and tail visible in flight
• White belly, dark bars on flanks
• Upperwings dark, secondaries with white tips
• Found primarily in marshes and wet fields
• Sexes similar
• Juvenile similar to adult

Similar species:

American Woodcock has a plain, buffy breast, rounded wings and a distinctive head pattern. Dowitchers are similar in size and shape but lack prominent crown and back stripes, and have a white rump and barred tail.

Length and wingspan from: Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B., Zim, H.S., (1966). Birds of North America. New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc.