Great Snipe

About the Great Snipe

The great snipe (Gallinago media) is a small stocky wader in the genus Gallinago. This bird's breeding habitat is marshes and wet meadows with short vegetation in northeastern Europe and northern Asia, from Scandinavia and Poland east across northern Russia to western Siberia, and south to northern Kazakhstan. Great snipe are migratory, wintering in tropical Africa. The European breeding population is in steep decline.

The great snipe was described by the English naturalist John Latham in 1787 with the binomial name Scolopax media. The name of the current genus Gallinago is Neo-Latin for a woodcock or snipe from Latin gallina, "hen" and the suffix -ago, "resembling". The specific media is Latin for "intermediate", because this species is intermediate in size between the woodcock and the common snipe.

At 26–30 cm (10–12 in) in length and a 43–50 cm (17–20 in) wingspan, adults are slightly larger, but noticeably bulkier, than the common snipe and have a 6–7 cm bill, shorter than that of common snipe. The bird's bulk is most evident in flight, more reminiscent of a woodcock than a common snipe. The body is mottled brown on top and barred underneath. They... Wikipedia →