Anne Cotton

A migratory snipe widely distributed across Eurasia, from the Azores and Iceland to Chukotka, and from e.g. France to the Arctic tundra. There are two subspecies in Europe: faeroensis breeds in Iceland, Faeroes, Orkney and Shetland and winters in the British Isles; gallinago across the rest of the range, wintering in W and S Europe, the Mediterranean basin and sub-Saharan Africa (and furtherE in the Middle East and Asia).

Season of assessment

B

Population trendDecreasing
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		5270000-7260000,6160000
Red List categoryVU
Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, Ambrosini, R, Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N, Hammond, M., Higgins, D, Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F, Thorup, K. Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R. (1) (2022) Online Atlas of the movements of European bird populations. https://migrationatlas.org EURING/CMS (1) Principal investigator
Map

Overall Connectivity for Common Snipe

Recoveries document a single W flyway, with all recoveries connecting to a ringing hub in W and NW Europe, but this is probably driven only by ringing effort. Birds ringed in Iceland mostly recovered in the British Isles. Birds from the N move SW, with most records in the British Isles and SW Europe, also in N Africa and down to Guinea-Bissau. Birds from E Europe have a more longitudinal migration to winter in W and SW Europe. Those wintering in SC Europe illustrate the complexity of migration connectivity in this snipe, as they mainly provide recoveries in C Europe, but also from England to Finland. Only one recovery documents migration to the S hemisphere - a bird ringed in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Dec was short in Oct in Ukraine.

Recoveries by Condition for Common Snipe

Most recoveries were in the 1960s and 1970s, with around half those annual numbers after 1980. As for other game species, most recoveries are of dead birds, half of them declared as shot, although after 1990 recaptures by ringers have increase and nowjust over 50% of recoveries are of live birds.

Annual Movements for Common Snipe

The movements of wintering snipes tagged in France and Italy (Movebank) indicate they summer in C, N and E Europe, with the majority in Russia, but ranging to the Netherlands and Norway. A bird which migrated to Russia left during the second half of Apr, with stopover(s) of a few days en route, and arrived on breeding grounds in early May. In Poland, birds migrating along the Baltic coast wintered at more N locations than those ringed in S Poland, supporting the existence of parallel autumn routes, while early migrants wintered further N than later migrants, making a leap-frog migration (Minias et al. 2010).

Connectivity by Month by Region for Common Snipe

Birds breeding in the N return to SW wintering groundsbetween early August and mid-November, when recoveries in Scandinavia become rare until the second dekad of Apr. Recoveries indicate similar dates for birds breeding in the NW, while in the E the last autumn recoveries are from the end of Oct. There are few data for faeroensis, but they indicate that they are on the breeding grounds Jun-Aug.

Frédéric Jiguet

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries
References Map
Minias, P., Włodarczyk, R., Meissner, W., Remisiewicz, M., Kaczmarek, K., Czapulak, A., Chylarecki, P., Wojciechowski, A., Janiszewski, T.2010 . The Migration System of Common Snipe Gallinago gallinago on Autumn Passage Through Central Europe. Ardea 98 Link to Article (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5253/078.098.0103) : 13–19

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