Monday, June 30, 2008

New for the Western Palearctic?


Note the rather Woodcock-/Jack Snipe-like profile, with steep forehead and 'short' bill.



Swinhoe's Snipe, Tohmajarvi, Niirala, Finland, 27.6.08 (digiscope).

Mike Weedon has just got back from Finland, where he caught up with this new European bird, the Swinhoe's Snipe. It was particularly distinctive (and brilliant) in flight, when its bubbly drumming and trilling combined with a bouncing flight on bowed V-shaped wings and plunges to earth with a 'basket' of vibrating tail-feathers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very nice pics - though this is not the first Swinhoe's Snipe to be recorded in Europe; it's actually the second. One was seen in European Russia in June 2002; previous claims in The Caucasus (1898)and Israel (1998) have wither been questioned or rejected in recent years.