A rare Snipe and a rare Wagtail

1 st May 2005

One good bird follows another this spring. I was happy to find and photograph a Great Snipe at the Yotvata Sewage. I was even more thrilled to find it feeding alongside a flavissima Yellow Wagtail.

It all started on the evening of 27 April. I flushed a large Snipe and immediately noticed the broad white tail sides and quite a lot of white on the upperwing. The underwing seemed quite uniformly dark and no clear trailing edge to the wing was evident. Unfortunately with the failing light I was not even sure of it being a Great Snipe and no images were taken.

On the 1 st of May I relocated the Snipe at the Yotvata sewage. After seeing 3 Common Snipe in the immediate vicinity of the bird I was ever more confident I am looking at something else. The identification of Great vs. Common Snipe is never easy and it took me over 2 hours of scrutinizing the bird and confirming all field marks to be sure its indeed a Great Snipe.

Credits: All photos courtesy of Jonathan Meyrav; Click on the photos to enlarge [+]

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Here are the field marks I based my identification on :

1. General size and structure, Great Snipe is large and pot-bellied and with a slightly shorter bill than Common Snipe.

2. Upperparts, Great Snipe shows clean mantle bars as in Common Snipe, but the upperwing shows much white, formed by the white tipped primary coverts. This is especially evident in flight, forming a prominent white wing bar. No trailing edge is evident in flight.

3. Underparts, Great Snipe is heavily barred down the breast, belly and flanks, much more than Common Snipe, which is barred only on the upper breast and flanks. In flight Great Snipe shows a rather uniform darkish underwing without any contrasting pale bands like in Common Snipe. The outer tail feathers of Great Snipe are pure white, contrasting with the rufous central tail feathers. This was especially evident as the bird fanned the tail when landing.

* The bird I found showed very little barring on the belly. I had expected to see a Snipe which is fully barred from throat to legs and therefore very different from Common Snipe. The fact of the matter is that close scrutiny of the bird at close range, did reveal scattered barring on the belly, flanks and even the trousers, far from heavy but evident never the less. We also know that the barring on the breast/belly of Great Snipe is very variable.

* The bird also showed bright yellow legs, a feature I could not find in literature as a field mark, but several birders commented that Great Snipe does show very bright yellow legs, much brighter than the dull grayish yellow legs of Common Snipe.

Great Snipe is a very rare bird in Israel nowadays. There are only a handful of confirmed records from the past 10 years. I hope you could benefit from this challenging identification summary. I am happy to bring you several images of this interesting bird. Any comments are welcome.

Alongside the Snipe I enjoyed great views of a flavissima Yellow Wagtail. This attractive subspecies breeds in the British Isles and till this spring there are no confirmed records of this subspecies in Israel. I added a couple of images for good measure.

Enjoy. More will follow shortly.

Jonathan Meyrav

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