Gallinago stenura
Adults have short greenish-grey legs and a long straight dark bill. The body is mottled brown on top, with cream lines down their back. They are pale underneath with a streaked buff breast and white belly. They have a dark stripe through the eye, with light stripes above and below it. Sexes are similar, and immatures differ only in minor plumage details. The wings are less pointed than Common Snipe, and lack the white trailing edge of that species. The shorter tail and flatter flight path when flushed also made flight separation from Common relatively easy. Male Pintail Snipes often display in a group, with a loud repetitive tcheka song which has a crescendo of fizzing and buzzing sounds, and also whistling noises produced in flight by the pin-like outer tail feathers which give this species its English name. The normal call is a weak squik.
Not Threatened.
Adults have short greenish-grey legs and a long straight dark bill. The body is mottled brown on top, with cream lines down their back. They are pale underneath with a streaked buff breast and white belly. They have a dark stripe through the eye, with light stripes above and below it. Sexes are similar, and immatures differ only in minor plumage details. The wings are less pointed than Common Snipe, and lack the white trailing edge of that species. The shorter tail and flatter flight path when flushed also made flight separation from Common relatively easy. Male Pintail Snipes often display in a group, with a loud repetitive tcheka song which has a crescendo of fizzing and buzzing sounds, and also whistling noises produced in flight by the pin-like outer tail feathers which give this species its English name. The normal call is a weak squik.
25–27 cm
Taxonomy:
- Scolopax stenura Bonaparte, 1830, Sunda Islands. Genus formerly named Capella, as this name erroneously considered to pre-date Gallinago. Monotypic. (source: Handbook of the Birds of World)
Distribution:
- NC & E Russia, from Ural Mts through Siberia and Transbaikalia to Sea of Okhotsk. Winters from Indian Subcontinent and Maldives through Indochina to SE China and Taiwan, and S to Philippines and W Indonesia; also found irregularly in small numbers in Saudi Arabia, E Africa and Aldabra Is.
It is the most common migrant snipe in southern India, Sri Lanka and much of Southeast Asia. It is a vagrant to north-western and northern Australia, and to East Africa Kenya. Its breeding habitat is damp marshes and tundra in Arctic and boreal Russia.
They forage in soft mud, probing or picking up food by sight. They mainly eat insects and earthworms, also some plant material.
Birds in their non-breeding range use a variety of wetlands, often with Common Snipe, but may be found also in drier habitats than their relative