When a bird disappears from your local patch you soon notice it especially if it is a species that is not exactly common and has an air of charisma about it. That is how it is with snipe here.
Until 2009 a pair or two regularly bred on the local patches of bog. I used to look forward to the 'drumming' in spring and early summer. I could watch them performing their unique air display from the comfort of my house which overlooks a valley where the bogs are located. But in the last two years there has been no 'drumming' and no tumbling air display or no familiar 'wicha, witcha' call emmited from the bogs , a fence post, a dung heap or as on one occaision from electric power lines.
The local population were always enhanced by flocks of winter visitors, probably from abroad, but they too have vanished or I simply have not noticed them. I would often see flocks or small groups flushed up skywards by the odd hunters out with their spaniels or retrievers that ventured into the bogs, but recently the hunters have flushed nothing.
Where have they gone and why? Well the hunters are certainly not to blame, but mother natures arctic blitzes in the last two winters have most likely caused their demise. Heavy snowfalls, and prolonged tundra like frosts made the normally soft waterlogged ground concrete hard. Any snipe around either moved on or simply starved or froze. On a couple of occcaisions I observed the odd snipe in my garden desperately trying to find sustainance. A pitiful sight. 2011 was snipeless or so I thought.
While some parts of the UK were basking in summer like climes this month, over here it was very wet and often very windy with only two dry days recorded. The last swallows were seen on the 7th and the last house martins on the 11th. Redwings arrived on the 13th and fieldfares on the 14th. On the 15th as I was coming out of my garage, I heard an all too familiar 'creech, creech' flight call. "I'm hearing things", I thought, but no. I looked up and there wheeling slowly but high over the house were 3 snipe. Had they visited the local bogs, or were they just passing through? Who knows, but at least this year was not snipeless afterall.
Until 2009 a pair or two regularly bred on the local patches of bog. I used to look forward to the 'drumming' in spring and early summer. I could watch them performing their unique air display from the comfort of my house which overlooks a valley where the bogs are located. But in the last two years there has been no 'drumming' and no tumbling air display or no familiar 'wicha, witcha' call emmited from the bogs , a fence post, a dung heap or as on one occaision from electric power lines.
The local population were always enhanced by flocks of winter visitors, probably from abroad, but they too have vanished or I simply have not noticed them. I would often see flocks or small groups flushed up skywards by the odd hunters out with their spaniels or retrievers that ventured into the bogs, but recently the hunters have flushed nothing.
Where have they gone and why? Well the hunters are certainly not to blame, but mother natures arctic blitzes in the last two winters have most likely caused their demise. Heavy snowfalls, and prolonged tundra like frosts made the normally soft waterlogged ground concrete hard. Any snipe around either moved on or simply starved or froze. On a couple of occcaisions I observed the odd snipe in my garden desperately trying to find sustainance. A pitiful sight. 2011 was snipeless or so I thought.
While some parts of the UK were basking in summer like climes this month, over here it was very wet and often very windy with only two dry days recorded. The last swallows were seen on the 7th and the last house martins on the 11th. Redwings arrived on the 13th and fieldfares on the 14th. On the 15th as I was coming out of my garage, I heard an all too familiar 'creech, creech' flight call. "I'm hearing things", I thought, but no. I looked up and there wheeling slowly but high over the house were 3 snipe. Had they visited the local bogs, or were they just passing through? Who knows, but at least this year was not snipeless afterall.
