Snipe

A snipe is a type of wading bird that belongs to the sandpiper family.
It has a long, slender bill that it uses to probe the mud for worms and other invertebrates.
It also has eyes placed high on the head and cryptic plumage that helps it blend in with its marshy habitat.
Snipes are found in temperate and warm regions worldwide, and they usually breed solitarily.
During their courtship, the male snipe performs a dramatic aerial display, diving toward the female and making a distinctive sound with its tail feathers.
Snipes are popular game birds, but they are also very alert and fly erratically when disturbed.

The snipe is a group of wading birds that have a very long and slender bill, eyes placed high on the head, and cryptic plumage that helps them blend in with their surroundings.
There are 26 different species of snipe, which belong to three genera: Gallinago, Coenocorypha, and Lymnocryptes.

Snipes live in various types of wet and marshy habitats, where they search for invertebrates in the mud with a sewing-machine action of their bill.
They prefer areas with patchy vegetation cover to hide from predators, and avoid places with dense vegetation.
Some of the ecosystems that snipes inhabit include wetlands, estuaries, bogs, ponds, lakes, swamps, and marshes.
They also live in flooded meadows or pastures, and along the banks of rivers and streams.

The distribution of snipes is almost worldwide, except for Antarctica.
The Gallinago snipes are the most widespread, and can be found in North, Central, and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
The Lymnocryptes snipe is restricted to Asia and Europe, and the Coenocorypha snipes are endemic to the outlying islands of New Zealand.

Snipes are highly alert and easily startled, and fly in an erratic pattern when disturbed.
This makes them difficult to hunt, and gave rise to the term sniper, which originally meant a skilled hunter of snipes.

A snipe is a bird that likes to hide
In marshy places where it can glide
It has a long bill and a brownish coat
And eyes on the top of its head, take note

It probes the mud for worms and bugs
And sometimes flies with zigzag jags
It makes a winnowing sound with its tail
And can be hard to spot, even for a snail

A snipe is a wader of the Scolopacidae
It has many species, some common, some rare
If you want to see one, you have to be patient
And look for it in wetlands, not in a basement