Solitary Snipe

The solitary snipe is a stocky wader, a heavy snipe 29–31 cm long with relatively short legs for a wader. The upperparts, head and neck are streaked and patterned in medium brown with whitish feather edges forming lines down the back. The breast is ginger-brown and the belly white with brown barring on the flanks, and the long, straight, fairly slender bill is brown and black, with yellowish-olive to yellowish-brown legs (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds in mountain bogs and river valleys above the timberline, typically at about 2,400 to 5,000 m. Many birds are sedentary in the high mountains or move downhill in hard weather, but others migrate, wintering in north-east Iran, Pakistan, northern India, Bangladesh, eastern China, Korea, Japan and Sakhalin. It gives a hoarse kensh call on take-off and a far-carrying chok-a-chok-a call in display, and its flight is relatively slow and heavy. SoIB 2023 lists it as a resident and winter migrant of open habitat that eats invertebrates, without a priority category (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).