I was doing a survey of some agricultural land north of Newcastle a few years ago, and flushed a jack snipe from a game cover strip along a field margin - it was fairly wet underfoot due to recent rains, but was not a wetland habitat (there were wetland habitats on the wider site, but not close by).
A month later whilst repeating the survey, I was walking across the middle of an adjoining stubble field and flushed another (or the same) jack snipe. This was again not a wetland habitat, and not even that wet at the time of my visit.
At the time I believed these to be unusual sightings, and highlighted it as such in my report; however, I've learned since this isn't necessarily the case. There is a jack snipe monitoring group based I believe in NE England - they used to post on X / Twitter - who were reporting quite large numbers of jack snipe in agricultural land habitats, using thermal imaging equipment to avoid disturbance. Unfortunately I haven't seen any recent postings, and don't know who they are. The inference was that jack snipe are greatly under-recorded, due to their occupying habitats that typically aren't visited by birders, coupled with their propensity to avoid flushing until you have almost stepped on them!
