Wood Snipe

Gallinago nemoricola Hodgson, 1836

≈31 cmLength46 cmWingspan168 gWeight

This rather dark snipe has a short, broad-based bill and lives in alpine meadows in summer.

Busiest months: February · Most records: China, Thailand, Nepal

Vulnerable

How to identify

Field marks

Rather dark overall
Bill short and broad-based

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: February · Most records: China, Thailand, Nepal

Wood Snipe has been recorded at 15 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 5 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

To protect this bird from disturbance, we don't list exact sites.

Countries and regions with the most records

China Thailand Nepal Bangladesh Myanmar (Burma)

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The wood snipe (Gallinago nemoricola) is a species of snipe which breeds in the Himalayas of northern India, Nepal, Bhutan and southern China. In winter, it occurs at lower altitudes in the Himalayas, as a regular visitor in small numbers to north Vietnam. it also occurs as a vagrant in central and southern India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, north Thailand and Laos. It is reportedly very well-known to Chauri herders in the Himalayas.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions

How big is the Wood Snipe?

The Wood Snipe is about ≈31 cm long, with a wingspan of 46 cm and weighs around 168 g.

Where does the Wood Snipe live?

Its breeding range: Oriental: alpine meadows and scrub of subtropical Asian mountains: western Himalayas from Himachal Pradesh to eastern India and south-central China. It is most often recorded in China, Thailand and Nepal.