It took me three weeks to stuff a turkey. I stuffed it through the beak. – Phyllis Diller
Wonder how long it would take to stuff a Wilson’s Snipe through the bill? – Cherie Pittillo
BILL-ABLE!
Doesn’t that impressive bill look like it’s five or six inches long on this eleven inched body, less than 5 ounce bird? While trying to photograph this species, all those full frame shots really tricked me. Plus it kept its neck squashed into its body. After it fed close to a larger Killdeer or a bigger Long-billed Dowitcher, I still didn’t believe a reference that stated the bill is between 2.2-2.5 inches! Several more reliable references confirmed that. Finally I spotted one which lifted its hydraulic neck and I now agree with bill length.
SNIPE SNOOP
The Wilson’s Snipe is a super snooper! That flexible bill, with many tactile nerve endings in the tip, probes in wet soil for insect larvae, crustaceans, earthworms, mollusks, and may ingest grit and plant material too. All those undigested parts like plants, seeds, shells, and grit, are cast out as a pellet.
Here’s a cool trick; it can swallow prey without pulling the bill tip out from soil. It appears to use the tongue to push food along backward serrations in the mouth. When it starts to probe, usually the beak tip is open and sometimes it may immerse the head or part of it. But if the food is too large, it will unearth it, then beat it into smaller pieces. When the soil is hard, it may stomp the ground or jump up and down to flush prey to move. The pointy-tipped bill also serves as a preening tool.
Those eyes allow the bird to look around for predators while it’s feeding as the vision overlaps at the back. In addition this bird’s pectoral muscles make up about a fourth of the body weight, the highest in all shorebirds. This chunky species can fly about 60 mph and often flies in a zigzag pattern when flushed.
ABUNDANT, “EDGY” SHOREBIRD, NOT AT THE OCEAN’S SHORE
The stocky Wilson’s Snipe, considered to be the most widespread and abundant shorebird in North America, is a winter resident of the Yucatan Peninsula visiting October to April. It breeds through most of Canada and northern US and winters from southern Alaska down to northern S. America. It is one of twenty or so snipe species in the Americas, EurAsia, and parts of Africa. Juveniles may have gray legs while the female may have longer bills and shorter outer tail feathers.
It prefers many freshwater edges of well-vegetated ponds, lakes, marshes, even wet meadows, wet pastures, and wet fallow fields all with lots of cover.
COURTING, TAYLOR SWIFT, ERRORS TOUR
How surprised I was to see a courting display in Patagonia, Chile of the Magellanic Snipe. The male danced with his outspread tail to impress the female. She kept feeding during the display. When he approached her, she stopped, but then resumed feeding. Finally he gave up and then explored a nearby wetland and like Taylor Swift, he could “shake it off!” Check out the photo of them with the male on the left. Don’t they look like the Wilson’s Snipe?
WE HAVE A WINNOW!
In general snipe are known by people being tricked to hunt snipe at night in a marsh to catch it in a sack or burlap bag when flushed. (Some people don’t know the bird actually exists.) Another well known trait is the male can make a haunting sound during courtship or territorial aggression not by its syrinx (voice box), but by the two outer tail feathers of its spread out tail. A male soars up then swoops down where those two tail feathers vibrate to make a winnowing sound. If that winnowing attracts a female, it could be a” winner on wing !” Actually females can make this sound too.
(If a flock of snipe are called a “wisp, couldn’t the winnowing be called a “whisper?” Oh, I get it, a whisper implies a voice.)
SOUND LINK: https://xeno-canto.org/795397
SWORD FIGHTS
Males fight and beat each other with their wings and actually have a sword fight with their bills whether in flight or on the ground for females or territory. Note the raised, fanned tails.
REVELRY BEFORE MONOGAMY
Both sexes mate with several birds and are called polyandrous but when a mate is selected, they are monogamous for the breeding season. In an ironic situation, the male leaves with the first two chicks that hatch and then the females leaves with the next one or two. Ap-parent-ly they go separate ways with no further contact. Also snipes and American Woodcocks are the only species in the shorebird family that feed their chicks. They masticate the food first, then put it directly into the young’s mouth.
GAME and GAMEY?
Supposedly the word “snipe” is derived from a word for snoot or snout while “sniper” originated in 1770s among British soldiers in India who hunted snipe as game. The snipe is one of the world’s most popular game birds where one hunter killed 6,615 snipe in one year. The same hunter killed 69,087 snipe from 1867-1887. Fast, zigzag flights make interesting targets. Evidently their great vision doesn’t work toward hunters. According to several references the population remains stable.
John James Audubon learned of “epicures” who wanted the snipe cooked with its entire digestive system in tact. It made the bird more delicious!?? When Audubon dissected snipes, he found large, well-fed worms and a leech and therefore determined, the snipe was not suitable for food of man. (Wonder what those epicures had been eating? I just wonder if that’s where the idea for grits originated. You know grits, that food that tastes like buttered kitty litter!)
GO OUTDOORS TO OBSERVE NATURE’S SECRETS!
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Little did I know when I observed my first secretive Wilson’s Snipe in the beloved Aqua Parque, Merida, Yucatan, that I would have more opportunities to witness those zig zag flights until years later in Florida. This year in one day at Black Point Drive, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville, Florida, I observed more than fifteen in the open where they were leisurely probing the wet soil for breakfast or dinner along a shallow impoundment.
Also how would I know that I would encounter another snipe species, the Magellanic Snipe, in Patagonia, Chile! On a trip with a wonderful, master photographer, Hector Astorga, (hectorastorga.com), we waited at a small wetland for pumas to drink. Instead, the pair of snipe appeared and gave us a show.
Expect something wonderful!
DISCLAIMER: Some references may not agree or I may not have found the most recent name changes. Plus autocorrect doesn’t like scientific names or language translations.
Sal a Pajarear Yucatán, Guia De Aves, Second Edition Barbara MacKinnon H, A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America, Howell and Webb, The Sibley Guide to Birdlife and Behavior, Handbook of Bird Biology, The Shorebird Guide, The Armchair Birder Goes Coastal
https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/beaks.html?p=2
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wilsons_Snipe
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/wilsons-snipe
https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/wilsni1/cur/behavior
https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Gallinago_delicata
https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/soasni3/cur/introduction
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ibi.12795
https://www.eastsideaudubon.org/corvid-crier/2022/4/wilsons-snipe
Cherie Pittillo, “nature inspired,” photographer and author, explores nature everywhere she goes. She’s identified 56 bird species in her Merida, Yucatan backyard view. Her monthly column features anecdotes about birding in Merida, Yucatan and also wildlife beyond the Yucatan.
Contact: all4birdies@gmail.com All rights reserved, ©Cherie Pittillo
The post BACKYARD BIRDING IN MERIDA, YUCATAN AND BEYOND – SNIPES’ SNIPPETS first appeared on The Yucatan Times.