Snipe - a bird in whose honor the hunting rifle is named. This representative of the birds was awarded such honor for his secrecy and unusualness.
Bekasov can be seen throughout the CIS countries with the exception of northern Russia and Kamchatka. Prefers to winter the bird in distant lands - in the territory near
India. Waiting for the cold times there, covering the post-Soviet space in the winter, snipes return to their territory in late April - early May.
The flight of these birds begins with a quiet grunt. The first minutes of his snipe sway in a zigzag fashion, which complicates the process of hunting them. These feathered creatures not only fly perfectly, but also swim, run and even dive.
What does a snipe bird eat? Typically, their diet is made up of worms, insects and vegetation. Sniping grease in any landscape area that has mud or mud places. Usually these are the edges of ponds, lakes, rivers, water meadows with shrubs and grass.
External differences of birds and their varieties
It is impossible to confuse a snipe with any other bird, since its special sign is a long beak, reaching a length of more than 5 centimeters. To recognize the bird is quite easy for other reasons. A snipe is the size of a medium thrush or starling. His body does not exceed 30 cm in length, and weight can be from 100 to 180 grams. The bird has a very beautiful color of plumage, although it is not distinguished by its diversity and brightness.
Do you know what else these swamp birds are called ? The name snipe has the following: chik or lamb (forest or wild). The bird belongs to the family of plover, to the order of waders. The genus of snipe in the CIS is represented by 6 species: Asian, common, Japanese (rather rare), hermit, as well as forest and common hollows. The first of them is common in the eastern regions of the country. It very much resembles an ordinary snipe, characterized by the presence of a larger number of tail feathers in the tail.
Bird color
Common snipe - a small bird, reaching the size of a chicken of three weeks of age. The bird is distinguished by the slenderness of the body, a very long thin and straight beak, high legs. The color of the snipe has shades of black, white and brown. Along the crown on the surface of the head, two strips of coal color are noticeable. Between them the plumage lies in the form of a narrow reddish strip. The upper body of the bird is colored alternately in yellow and black stripes. Over the wings and along the humeral region of the snipe, buffy light borders are noticeable. Chest, neck and part under the tail is yellow-gray in color with black marks. The sides of the bird are light, the stomach is white. The tail feathers have a
red color and black bordering. Beak of snipe dark horny, legs greenish or olive. The color of the eyes, moved strongly to the back of the head, is brown.
Habitat
Snipes make nests practically throughout the CIS. The exception is desert areas, some steppes in the southern latitudes and the Far North. You can even find a bird’s nest on top of a mountain in conditions of eternal cold and snow.
A snipe can winter in Central Asia, the Transcaucasus, and outside the CIS. Birds migrate from warm places to nesting sites from March to June. It depends on how far south or north their habitat is. Residents of the central regions of Russia can observe snipe in their latitudes in April.
Toxing of birds
Almost immediately after the flight to the nesting sites, snipes begin mating games. Males fly in the air, flying to a great height. From there, they swoop down sharply. In this case, the feathers of the tail and wings make a sound similar to vibrating, which resembles the bleating of a ram. It is believed that female snipe also participate in such flights. In fact, they sit during a current in the grass and utter a call-out. Often these swamp-meadow birds, which sit during the mating season on bumps or bushes, emit a kind of croaking. Some hunters insist that similar sounds come from females. But observations indicate a reverse situation. The males running in the air, having made more than one circle, fall down with a stone and, crouching on a hummock or branch of a bush, emit croaking “taku-taku”.
Nesting
In May, sometimes in June, a snipe (female) arranges a nest. Most often it is located on a bump. Usually preference is given to manes with rarely growing spruce and birch trees, stumps, sedge marshes and moist meadows with scattered alder islands. Sometimes the female snipe arrange their structures for posterity in a humid coniferous forest.
The shape of the nests of these birds looks like a small depression, which is dug in the ground and covered with dry vegetation, most often with grass stems. The layer thickness of such a litter is approximately 20 mm.
Marsh bird snipe lays usually four cone-shaped colorful eggs. Their main color is most often olive with the addition of brown and yellow hues and brown or gray spots. The hatching period of eggs lasts 18-20 days. The male is not involved in this process, as well as in the care of hatched chicks. But at the same time, it is always not far from the location of the nest.
Offspring
Snipe - a bird whose offspring leaves its place of birth immediately after the hatching process to find food under the supervision of a female. And this happens on the 19-21st day from the beginning of the incubation of eggs (after 3 weeks). Often snipe chicks can be found in June. With the passage of one month, the young growth becomes much more independent, and the family moves from marshy places in the thickets to a more open space.
After about two months from the moment of birth, the stronger individuals that are able to independently protect themselves and obtain food are separated from the family. The brood breaks up. By this time, molting ends in adult snipe.
Preparing for the winter
Before flying to warmer climes during the winter period, snipe very fatten, become less mobile. This allows predators and hunters to come closer to them. Snipe start flying to wintering places from the end of August. They leave the warmest regions of the CIS in October. Too overweight individuals sometimes linger until the first snow falls. There are cases of lonely snipe wintering near non-freezing springs.
Bird-preferred food
How and what does the snipe bird eat in swamps and meadows? The main part of the diet consists of a variety of insects and their larvae, worms, snails, bugs.
Snipe is fed by its long beak, which they dig the earth with. It happens as follows. The bird instantly sticks its beak into the soil or silt, gropes food with its tip at a depth of 5-6 centimeters and captures it. Snipe has one interesting feature. They are able to swallow food without removing their beak from the ground. Also, these birds can feed on leeches and parts of plants: seeds, sprouts, roots. Snipe - a bird that in search of food can even dive into the water.
Feathered features
The birds are especially active at dawn and dusk. Snipe rarely use wings, to move, they mainly use the ground. But to catch these representatives of birds is not so simple. Snipes are especially careful, in case of the slightest danger they run away into the thickets of reeds or other shelters. Bird wings are used for long-distance flights to warmer climes for wintering and vice versa, as well as to attract the attention of the opposite sex during mating season.