Great Snipe

This article is incomplete. This article is missing one or more sections. You can help the BirdForum Opus by expanding it.

Photo by steinn
Tisnes, Tromsø, Norway

Gallinago media

Distribution

Breeds in northern Palearctic; winters to sub-Saharan Africa.

Taxonomy

This is a monotypic species^[1].

Habitat

Marshland, pasture and wetland.

Behaviour

Movement

Migratory: recent results show that Great Snipe regularly fly non-stop from northern Europe to sub-Saharan Africa, with the longest such flight being 6800 km during 84 hours for a speed of about 96 km/hour. Returning in spring, there seemed to be a non-stop flight across Sahara to Balkan where the birds fed before continuing north.

Vocalisation

Lekking: in the last seconds of its display it blows up like a balloon and makes a pit-pit-pit-prrrrrrrr - sound before the chest returns to normal.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, B.L. Sullivan, C. L. Wood, and D. Roberson. 2013. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: Version 6.8., with updates to August 2013. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. BF Member Observations

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Great Snipe. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 11 May 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Great_Snipe

External Links

Search for photos of Great Snipe in the gallery

Search for videos of Great Snipe on BirdForum TV

• View more images of this species on Orientalbirdimages