THE COMMON SNIPE.
WHEN in Shetland lately I was wandering about on a bare, barren, hill-top, " wide, wild, and open to the air," but seemingly devoid of life. A raven flapped over in its heavy and solemn way ; a gull flew across to a neighbouring fresh-water loch, to join others of its kind that were busy washing, but the moor itself was lifeless. Not a thing moved upon the brown expanse. • Even the sphagnum and cottongrass-filled hollows between the peat mounds were tenantless—at least they appeared to be, for nothing moved ; but as I walked across one of these mounds, the brown peaty water welling up through the moss as I stepped on the tufts of green, a snipe rose almost under my feet. It flew a few yards, then dropped to the ground and ran over the short heather. Thinking I must have flushed it off eggs or young, I turned back and searched, but failed to find anything. Coming back the same way, a little later, I spied the bird running up a peaty channel near the spot where I had flushed it, so threw myself flat on the ground on a heathery bank between two peaty, boggy channels and waited events. In a few moments I heard a clucking noise. It was the snipe giving that peculiar fussy little call that this bird makes when on the ground, and I saw her coming up one of the peaty watercourses about ten yards off. Her dainty little grey-blue feet and legs showed up against the black soil as she ran a few steps, paused, and came on again. This she did several times, until she was not five yards off. She clucked all the time like a clock ticking, and once she made a buzzing noise—not at all like the aerial drumming— and one could see the feathers of her throat moving with the vibration just under the " chin." Carrying her head high, with bill depressed and pointed downwards, and neck very straight, she came some- what nearer, stepping a slow and • dainty goosestep, in a precise manner. She evidently saw me, for her eyes were turned in my direction, but she seemed more inquisitive than frightened of the strange object lying on the short heather. On she came. nearer and nearer, until she was within three yards. I could see the delicate pencilling of her plumage, the quivering of her feathers at every breath, and the half-cautious, wholly inquisitive expression in her eye. Being so close, she walked round me, making two complete circles of inspection, for the greater part of the time keeping up the " chuck ! • chuck ! chuck ! " stopping only when out of sight behind a tuft of grass or heather. Again she made the buzzing noise, but only for a second.
When she had completed her second circuit: she turned off, and began to poke and probe in the damp ground, thrusting the tip of her long bill in here and there, apparently hunting for grubs. Thrice she drew out what looked like little worms, and by the motions of her throat it was evident she swallowed them. After feeding for some minutes she shook her feathers and began to preen herself, passing her bill through her feathers, especially her breast feathers. Suddenly a raven came in sight, flapping ponderously along.
Seeing his dark, ominous shape overhead, she crouched, ran a few steps into the heather, and lay flat until he had gone by, when she stood up, looked around, and then clucked. But I, too, had to rise, for time had passed and I must go. For a moment the snipe stood petrified as the object which she had probably, from its stillness, considered only a harmless lump, rose and became a human being. Then she took wing and skimmed away across the moor.
On another occasion I watched a snipe at even closer quarters, for the bird actually ran over my foot. This was not in the north, but in the English midlands, where in a little marsh I had a hiding tent for photo- graphic purposes near a snipe's nest. The bog in question lies in a valley between woodlands and well- cultivated meadows, but its half-acre of rushes and sedge affords shelter for three or four pair of snipe.
Early in the spring their peculiar bleating or drumming is heard on the breeze, and the birds can be seen circling round high overhead, or swooping steeply downwards every now and again, when that strange, plaintive sound trembles through the air. At one time it was a moot question how the sound was produced, but now naturalists are agreed that it is chiefly, if not entirely, caused by the vibration of the outer feathers of the snipe's tail. The only question now is whether the primaries add to its volume by vibrating also. That the tail alone is sufficient to produce the sound can easily be proved. All you have to do is to get the tail feathers from a dead snipe, fix them in a weighted cork, and whirl it round, when the well-known bleating will be exactly reproduced. Even a draught blowing through a tail may suffice to make the drumming.
Once I had a snipe's tail in a hat, and when walking about in windy weather was continually hearing snipe overhead. At first I was much puzzled, but the mystery was cleared up when the tail was remembered.
It is generally stated that the drumming of snipe is confined to the breeding season, and though this is correct as a general rule it is occasionally heard later. Snipe are not early nesters, and their eggs cannot usually be found before the end of May. This may be because, having only one clutch, there is no need for them to begin early. The nest, hidden in a dry tuft of grass somewhere in the marsh, is very difficult to fmd, and it is only by flushing the sitting bird that you are likely to come across it. It was thus I found the nest I have mentioned. Then I placed my tent about forty yards off, and moved it up by degrees, so that the bird might get accustomed to it before it was brought quite close. Snipe, for all their inquisitiveness, are wary and shy, and I have known them refuse to come near a tent. In this case the precautions taken were effective, and the hide was finally put only four feet from the nest. From within its sheltering canvas I could see, unsuspected by the birds, all that went on. The sitting snipe soon came back, slipping between the grass-stems and through the rushes with a gliding motion, and clucking softly all the time. She settled down on her eggs—four handsome olive-green ones, beautifully blotched with blackish brown—and cuddled them under her, shuffling them right by wriggling movements of her body and by pushing them with .her beak. When she was quiet and comfortable I took a photograph, but the click of the shutter startled her, and she slipped off the nest and ran away. After changing the exposed plate I sat quietly waiting for her return. Presently I heard the faintest rustle amongst the grass by the tentside. Looking down, I saw the canvas had been raised three or four inches, and through the gap I caught a glimpse of a pair of grey-blue legs running, the snipe's body being hidden by the side of the tent. Reaching the corner she came inside. She paused and looked up at me, while I sat as if frozen, frightened to breathe lest she should take alarm. She regarded me steadily for some seconds, then stepped forward, passed over my loot, and out where the canvas was raised a little on the opposite side. She went straight to the nest, stood over her eggs, arranged them, and sat down upon them, as if staring human beings out of countenance was an everyday event with her. Of course, she never realized what the motionless object within the tent was. To wild creatures that which does not move is harmless, and in this instance it was evident that the snipe did not associate what she saw within the hide with people as she knew them walking across the meadows, for when anybody came in sight of the marsh she was off her nest and away in a second, though she sat closer as the hatching-time approached.
At first this snipe was easily startled by noise, but after a day or two she got quite used to the changing of plates, the bang of my focal-plane shutter, and even took no notice when I spoke ; but if I put as much as a finger outside the tent she was gone like a flash. Young snipe leave the nest within an hour or two of hatching, so my watch by her nest ended the day the eggs chipped. The chicks are most charming and beautiful babies, in colour a handsome tortoiseshell of dark red-brown and black powdered with grey. They are active little things and can run well It is note- worthy that their beaks are much shorter in com- parison with their size than in the old birds. The exaggerated length is only acquired with age ; the long beak doubtless came late in the evolution of the species. The chick, of course, has not at first to get its own living, for both parents help to feed the young ones. I am inclined to think that the old birds divide their parental responsi- bility, the cock taking charge of two chicks and the hen the other two. Why I suggest this is that when you find young snipe they are nearly always in couples, one old bird getting up near by. I have often put up a snipe, hunted about until I found the two young, walked on, put up another snipe and found two more chicks. It may, of course, only be coincidence. The male snipe is a devoted father, and when hatching begins he is always near the nest, ready to give assistance as soon as required, and to help his mate do the broken wing trick should danger threaten. The chicks are exceedingly difficult to find when, in obedience to their parents' warning note, they crouch flat among the marsh plants, for the browns, blacks and greys of their fluffy down are so like the lights and shades in the shadowy places and on the wet soil that they are almost invisible. The colouring of the adults also harmonizes perfectly with their surroundings, the light and dark stripes blending with the grass, and as long as a snipe does not move the odds are greatly against its being noticed ; indeed, even when it does move, it is far from conspicuous, for it glides so quietly through the rushes that one can hardly see it go. Even when it takes wing that peculiar, swift, zigzag flight saves it from many foes. A good shot may bring it down, but what natural foe can encompass its downfall ? Even the merlin cannot overtake it in fair flight.
Being a strong flier, the snipe migrates widely; but I have never satisfied myself whether or no the snipe of our English midlands go abroad for the winter. The bog mentioned above holds snipe all the year round, and in about the same numbers; but are the birds present in the winter the same bred there in the spring, or have these gone south, and are their places taken by snipe coming down from the north ? There is no doubt that the latter come down in numbers, for snipe abound in winter where there are but few at other times ; and in severe weather, when the marshes are frozen, all have to go south. But, given a fairly mild season, do the majority of our home-bred birds stay with us ? My opinion is that they do, but the point is difficult to settle, and the results of bird-ringing as carried out during recent years are not, in the case of this species, sufficient to tell us how many of our English-bred snipe go away.
It is often said that snipe never perch on anything, but this is not so. Cases of their standing on posts and rails have been recorded from time to time, and when I was crossing a heath one day I saw one perched on the top of an old barn near a wild, waste piece of ground. It stayed there for five minutes or more before it flew down. But such instances are rare enough not to disprove the rule that the dainty snipe is a bird of the waste boggy places, .a lover of marshy wastes, with no use for trees and buildings.
FutiNeEs Prrr.
Previous page
