UK wintering birds: 110,000 birds
Family: Sandpipers And Allies
The adult jack snipe has a blackish-brown mantle, upper scapulars, rump, and upper tail with a purple and green gloss, and four conspicuous golden lines that contrast with the darker areas. The lower scapulars are dark brown with reddish-brown and pale buff markings.
It has brown coverts with pale buff fringes on the upperwings and their the feathers are dark brown with narrow white tips. The wedge-shaped tail is dark brown with a darker centre.
The upper underparts, neck, breast, flanks, and under the tail are streaked with brown, while the rest of the underparts are white. The underwings are pale grey with light brown streaks.
The head is blackish-brown heads with pale flecks and a double pale buff supercilium with a short black stripe above the eyes which continues behind the eyes and joins a dark spot on the lower ear-coverts. The lores are black and there is a dark line on their lower cheeks. The rest of the face, chin, and throat are pale buff and the hindneck is mottled grey-brown with pale flecks.
It has a relatively short bill, that is dull pink with a yellow base and black at the tip. The eyes are dark brown and the legs and feet are pale green, dull yellow, or pinkish-brown.
Male and female jack snipes look similar but the male has a longer tail and wings.
Juveniles resemble adults with white undertail-coverts and paler brown stripes.
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During courtship male jack snipes perform aerial displays and make a distinctive sound which sounds a bit like a galloping horse.
Jack snipes breed from May to early September and can produce 2 broods a season. They build their nests in well-hidden sites, on floating bogs, or on dry ground amongst vegetation. The nest is a shallow depression lined with grass and leaves.
Jack snipes lay 3-4 olive-brown eggs with darker markings which are incubated by the female alone for 24 days. Chicks are precocial and can walk soon after hatching. Both parents feed the young which fledge at 21 days and become independent a few days later.
Jack snipes eat worms, insects, small molluscs, and occasionally grass and seeds.
Jack snipes can be seen in the UK in the winter between September and April.
They can be found in lowland wetland areas, on the edges of reedbeds, lagoons, fenland, river edges, and muddy ditches.
Unlike other snipes the jack snipe lacks the pale central stripe on its crown which distinguishes it from other species. It also has four stripes on its sternum instead of two.
