Wilson’s Snipe

About Wilson’s Snipe

The idea of snipe hunts used as pranks in summer camps might have confused a lot of kids, but Wilson’s Snipes are actually the only creatures of imagination made up to play practical jokes on your peers. They are real, plump-bodied shorebirds with a wide range in North America. Their buff-brown color pattern doesn’t exactly make it easy to see them. Along with their secretive nature, the only time you can spot them is when they are too busy trying to attract a mate to care about you. 

It’s how you end up finding them perched on fence posts in summer or doing their zigzag aerial display in the sky while their tails make the creepy winnowing noise. 

Today, we’ll learn about: 

  • Wilson’s Snipe color patterns, songs, and size
  • Wilson’s Snipe behavior, habitat, and diet
  • Wilson’s Snipe life cycle, nesting, and migration range

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Wilson’s Snipes Color Pattern

White on their chest, belly, and underparts, Wilson’s Snipes are a beautiful, elegant species to see when they are flying. Unlike the odd sight they make when they are standing, in flight, they can show off all the wonderful color patterns on their body against the blue sky. 

The tail feathers are adorned with several shades of buffy brown, patterned on top of each other to create this legal look. The tip of the tail is pure white though. Then, the back, head, and flanks of Wilson’s Snipes are intricately patterned with buff-brown. On some parts, it is coffee-colored followed immediately by chocolate color and deep brown. The color patterns on their body help them become one with the ground, hiding them away from the view of their earthworm and insect prey. They have black bills and cream-colored legs. 

Description And Identification

Wilson’s Snipes is one of the easily identifiable bird species. Perhaps it is due to their loud nature during breeding season? They are seen making loud, whining noises as they fly up and then make deep dives. The sound their tail feather makes while on-air combined with their chip calls makes them hard to not notice if you are around them. As long as you can find marshes, bogs, and other such areas they frequent, you should be able to find them following the noise source. 

Then, when you do see them, making certain it is the snipe species you are looking for is too easy. Only certain shorebirds have such long bills ideal for probing around damp soil in an attempt to find food. And of the ones that do, not much have a white plumage accompanied by brown, white, and black stripes on their body. If even that matches with other species, the cream color of the legs is a rare thing. 

When you look for them, be careful to maintain some distance. This species doesn’t look forward to human visits. 

If you liked learning about Wilson’s Snipe check out these other birds on our page! If you want to know what our page can do for you check this website. Or check out some coloring pages for birds for fun!

Wilson’s Snipe Song 

On the breeding ground, a huge variety of calls are heard from both male and female Wilson’s Snipes. When they are flushing, a script call is heard. During migration, while they are flying in the sky, they make this sound too. In excitement, a ringing jick call is heard from the breeding birds, repeated over and over again. Then, when the male Wilson’s Snipe lands on the breeding ground, they do so with a harsh chip, trying to alert a potential mate of their presence. The chip sound is also made by the female snipe while the male snipe is doing their overhead winnowing display. 

As the Wilson’s Snipes ascend and descend, a haunting sound is created by the air that passes through the outer tail of the species. It is a winnowing, hu hu sound. The sound has often been described as sounding similar to Eastern Screech-Owl’s call. In most cases, the sound comes out when the bird is diving down. The sound can also come out during the level-up process that follows a dive. This entire winnowing sound and flight is performed by the male to both attract a mate and establish their claim on breeding territory. Prior to breeding, even the females make winnowing sounds. Once they start nesting though, this stops. 

Wilson’s Snipe Size

Medium-sized as they are, Wilson’s Snipes are quite the pudgy beings. Compared to their body, they have short legs that seem incapable of supporting their weight at first. The bill is certainly the weirdest thing on their body, long and straight as it is. Even bigger than the length of their head, they have a round head. On the other hand, they have an extremely short tail. If you have ever seen a killdeer, Wilson’s Snipes are about that size. Their body is heavier compared to other bird species and the lankiness is missing. 

In length, Wilson’s Snipes stop at 32 cm. The shortest one might be around 27 cm. In weight, the smallest one would be 79 g while the heavier bunch stops at about 146 g. The wingspan ranges from 40 to 44 cm. 

Wilson’s Snipe Behavior

Their foraging style involves probing their bill around the wet muddy land until they find their prey. The sensitive, flexible bill tip allows them to not only detect the presence of their prey but also capture it from underground. Sometimes, they might go a little into the water to capture food available on the surface. They pick out insects roaming around on the earth in times of need too. 

What Wilson’s Snipes Eat

Earthworms and insects are pretty much the main food of Wilson’s Snipes. A lot of the insects they intake as food happen to live either in narrow, starting sides of water bodies or just below the earth’s surface of damp soil. This includes beetles, crane flies, different kinds of beetles, etc. In some places, the snipes only eat earthworms and don’t have any other kind of food source. 

Seeds, spiders, frogs, mollusks are also included in this mix. 

Look at these very cool bird seeds.

Where Wilson’s Snipes Live And Habitat

Wilson’s Snipes inhabit wet meadows, marshes, and bogs. During migration and the winter season, the habitat can change rapidly. However, they all have one thing in common. These are all damp places. The Snipes roam around ponds and rivers, wet pastures, fresh salt marshes, and so on. Breeding season, they are seen around bogs and marshes with fresh water in them. Stream sites that have shrubs going alongside it and northern tundra are also well-liked. 

Range and Migration

Tundra, marshes, and bogs, are all the habitats they breed in Canada and the north of the United States. Then, in Russia, you are bound to find them on Chukchi Peninsula. On the Pacific Coast of the US, they are known as year-round residents. The population that resides on the east migrates to the south of the US, to the north of South America, and to the Caribbean. 

It is possible that the effect of climate change has forced the species to head for their breeding range earlier than necessary. They also leave later than what used to be the norm about 100 years ago. Presently, an overwhelming portion of the population shows up on the breeding ground by late April. 

Most of them spend the winter in North America. Some do travel greater distances than that. Those who band in Canada are known to reach places like South America and the Lesser Antilles. They are lonely migrators and don’t do it in flocks. 

If you want to look at more migration patterns check out these birds, the Canadian Geese migration, Robin migration, and Baltimore Oriole migration.

Wilson’s Snipe Life Cycle

The life cycle of Wilson’s Snipe begins when the female snipe lays 3 to 4 eggs. The color of their egg ranges from a brown to buffy olive tint. There are definite dark brown markings on the ends. The female parents do the incubating part, taking 18 to 21 days to warm the eggs until they are ready to hatch. 

Like a lot of shorebirds, the young take a couple of hours before they are seen strutting out of the nest. The broods are taken care of by both parents. They divide the chicks into 1 or 2 and then look after them. At first, the young are fed by their parents. Once, the chicks learn how to find food themselves, they are left to their own abilities. At about 19 to 20 days, they become capable of taking their first flight. 

Nesting

The winnowing display is performed by male Wilson’s Snipes during the breeding season. This is something that they do at night even more. They fly up at first and then move around in circles. Occasionally, they make sudden small dives. While they are diving, a whinny, hollow sound is produced by their feather, specifically from the ones adorning the outer tail. When they are on the ground and are on edge as they feel threatened or angry, they do some angry displays. One of which involves crouching and then either spreading their tail or raising it up high so that the pattern becomes visible. This can distract a potential enemy as well as scare off prey. 

For the nest site, they either find clusters of grass and hide the build the nest on the ground between them or bury it in tundra vegetation. The nest itself is a thin layer of depression made on the ground by the female Wilson’s Snipe. Mosses, fine grass, and leaves are used to line it. Additionally, overhanging plants might be around it, creating a canopy of sorts. 

A good way to keep the birds you love is to add to their home a place they can bath. Here are some ideas of birdbaths!

Anatomy of a Wilson’s Snipe

Stocky, rounded shorebirds, Wilson’s Snipes have small legs. Thin and short, the legs don’t seem to do much to support their weight, stumbling their body forward the slightest amount. They also have a small head compared to the big chest and belly, and even smaller neck size. The tail isn’t even noticeable at all at first. You might have to spend some time inspecting them before you are able to make out the tail feathers. When they raise the tail though, the existence becomes quite obvious. 

Then, there is the bill. How could one even begin to ignore the bill on Wilson’s Snipes? Long and straight, the bill doesn’t curve but has enough flexibility to bend a little when they are poking at the ground for food. The bill is actually several times longer than their head. On their small head, the length of the bill is a peculiar sight to see. 

Final Thoughts

There’s a practical joke out there that if you want to hunt down a Snipe, you will have to spend the night at a marsh with a bag. Apparently, you are supposed to startle a Snipe into the bag. Not an actually recommended method!

A better and painless way would be to take a walk in wetlands of the open nature during the spring and summer seasons. Keep your eyes and ear hyper-focused to see and hear their flying display known as winnowing. At a high elevation, these fast fliers perform their swooping descent. If they are not busy flying, they are perched on exposed flat places such as fence posts and wires. 

During migration season and the whole of the winter months, you want to scan the edges of water bodies instead. Often wandering around pools and mud ponds, they might scamper around ditches and small pools made of rainwaters too. Your long walks might reveal Wilson’s Snipes at unexpectedly close quarters. Some might even take off from a nearby area beside you while giving out their raspy call. The best time to find this species would be at dusk and dawn since that is when they become active and loud about their presence. 

At one point, Wilson’s Snipes were present in abundance. However, the trend of hunting snipes during the late 19th century for fun and market purposes led to a considerable dip in numbers. Added to that the loss of habitat, the species isn’t everywhere as it used to be. This doesn’t mean it isn’t a common species though. As far as the bird species are concerned, they have survived by a relieving number. 

Ornithology

Bird Watching Academy & Camp Subscription Boxes

At Bird Watching Academy & Camp we help kids, youth, and adults get excited and involved in bird watching. We have several monthly subscription boxes that you can subscribe to. Our monthly subscription boxes help kids, youth, and adults learn about birds, bird watching, and bird conservation.

Bird Watching Binoculars for Identifying Wilson’s Snipe

The most common types of bird-watching binoculars for viewing Wilson’s Snipe are 8×21 binoculars and 10×42 binoculars. Bird Watching Academy & Camp sells really nice 8×21 binoculars and 10×42 binoculars. You can view and purchase them here.

Wilson’s Snipe Iron On Patches 

Kids, Youth, and Adults love to collect our Bird Watching Academy & Camp iron-on patches. Our bird-watching patches help you keep track of the birds you have seen and identified. You can also display the patches on our Bird Watching Academy & Camp banners.

The Wilson’s Snipe is a great iron-on patch to start your collection with. The patches are durable and can be sewn on or ironed on to just about anything.

Wilson’s Snipe Stickers

Stickers are a great way for you to display your love for bird watching and Wilson’s Snipe. Here is the sticker pack we sell with a Wilson’s Snipe sticker.

Bird Feeders For Wilson’s Snipe

There are many types of bird feeders. Here are our favorite bird feeders for your backyard. We use all of these bird feeders currently. Kids will have a great time watching birds eat at these bird feeders. Using this collection of bird feeders will provide a wide variety and many types of birds.

Check this link to learn how to make birdfeeders! Or check out some of our favorite bird feeders hanging bird feeders, window bird feeders, and Suet birdfeeders.

Best Birdhouses for Wilson’s Snipe

There are many types of birdhouses. Building a birdhouse is always fun but can be frustrating. These 4 birdhouses have become our favorites. Getting a birdhouse for kids to watch birds grow is always fun. We spent a little extra money on these birdhouses but they have been worth the higher price and look great.

Check out these cool birdhouses Bluebird birdhouse, Blue jay birdhouse, and Robin birdhouse.

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