WADER 9/60 - SNIPES 1/4 Pin-tailed Snipes

Pin-tailed Snipes

A winter visitor from up north. Sighting in Johor and southern part of Peninsula.

A very beautiful bird of about a foot with a shorter pointed beak compared to Swinhoe's or the Common. It has a shorted orangy pintail. Often found in dry part of Marshland, Paddy fields and in my case in a football field in Tioman isle !

There are many experts' description out there on the differences between Pintail Snipes and Swinhoe Snipes but most of them would end up with a suggestion of counting the number of its tail feathers to be exact or 100% sure.  However there are also experts out there who are confident that the differences can also be determined in flight. Using the matrix checklist procedure Rodney of ron-nature-adventure.blogspot.com have summarised his findings  to identify the different  snipes which can be seen in Malaysia

                                                                                Pintail         Common       Swinhoe

Characteristics: 

i) Zig zag flight patterns                                           Yes               Yes           More direct

ii) White trailing edge to secondaries                Almost none        Yes          Almost none

iii) Belly - white and unbarred                            More barred        Yes          More barred

iv) Brown on top with cream lines                      Pale brown         Yes          Pale brown

      down their back

v In flight legs extend beyond tail                             -                    Yes             Shorter