Common Snipe
By Lesley McGalliard
Want to go on a Snipe hunt? For many years, that has been a fun kid’s game at summer camps and parties. In reality, our Common Snipe is a shorebird that makes its home in the wetland of Kittitas County and other places along the northern continental United States.
A little larger than a quail, it has a long straight bill that is used to probe for prey in soft ground and mud. It eats worms, crustaceans and insects, with occasional marshy greens mixed with lots of water and, like owls, regurgitates pellets of indigestible parts. It is fairly secretive, with brown and white-streaked coloring that blends well with its grassland surroundings. T
The pair makes a nest on the ground, well-concealed under bent-over grass, and lays 3-4 light brown to olive-colored eggs heavily splotched with darker brown. In the spring, Common Snipes return to Kittitas County from their wintering grounds in Southern California and Arizona, and the males begin a very unusual and distinctive aerial mating display.
Day and night, they fly high into the sky, sometimes erratically, then suddenly make a series of dives towards earth, spreading their outer tail feathers. The “winnowing” of the tail feathers during the dive produces a huhuhuhu throbbing whistle sound that is unlike any other sound produced by other birds. When on the ground or perch on their territory, their vocal call is a repeated number of high bleats.
Due to loss of wetland habitat, their numbers are somewhat decreasing here and in other areas of the United States, and like quail they can still be hunted in the fall, although this is
