Animal

Country diary: a little bobbing bird is a joy to behold


“Is it a jack snipe because it’s like a jack-in-a-box?” were the words I overheard from someone standing near me. A fair question because, as it feeds, this tiny wader from Arctic Russia bobs up and down, the body performing a rhythmic movement that I timed at about one bob per second.

The seemingly involuntary vertical motion is in a separate plane to the jack snipe’s frenetic, horizontal mud-probing action, which I reckoned was performed at about five stabs every second. In a minute of feeding the bird simultaneously pops up and down and jabs the head and beak forward hundreds of times. Let’s be honest: it is hilarious stuff.

But to answer that question, this bouncing behaviour doesn’t explain the name. “Jack” – first recorded in the 17th century – is a reference to the animal’s size. Lymnocryptes minimus is a “little” snipe, compared with the once-abundant resident bird known as a common snipe, Gallinago gallinago.

A common snipe (Gallinago gallinago) feeding in wet grassland in Norfolk



A common snipe
(Gallinago gallinago) feeding in wet grassland in Norfolk Photograph: Gary K Smith/FLPA/Rex/Shutterstock

What I find entrancing about this secretive creature is that, aside from the distinctive jack-in-a-box behaviour, it reveals its identity through its negative capabilities. Jack snipes are less than their relatives. When visiting Britain they are also silent. In all my life I’ve never heard so much as a peep. They’re known, when flushed, for flying less than common snipe and sometimes even refusing to move at all (for this reason the French call it bécassine sourde, “deaf snipe”). The first I ever saw, 46 years ago, was plucked bodily by a friend like a gold-and-emerald treasure from its rush couch.

Since that moment, each subsequent time that we have met, a jack snipe has gifted me, through these negative details, an understanding of its identity. The process of acknowledgement by one species unto another, observer towards the observed, is for me the greatest privilege enjoyed by any naturalist. I recommend it to everyone. An hour by a muddy pool with a little bobbing bird is an hour steeped in real meaning.



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