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| Great Snipe - strange sound resembled smack of tongue |
IN 1857, brothers Frederick and Percy Godman decided to take a birdwatching holiday in Norway at a time when that country's ornithology was relatively under-explored. The pair, who were founder-members of the British Ornithologists' Union, decided to make Bodø their base because they had read that the surrounding area provided breeding habitat for their main target species - the Great Snipe. This is an account, first published in January, 1861, in the BOU's journal, The Ibis - of their quest for that enigmatic marshland bird.
On walking across the open part of the marsh, on the 26th of May, we flushed our first Great Snipe.
This bird had evidently only just arrived and did not fly more than a few yards before it settled again.
Whenever else we observed this species, it was amongst the brushwood on the borders of the marsh.
A few days after, as we were returning from a long ramble in the mountains, on pushing our way over some swampy ground covered with birch wood and dwarf willow on the edge of the marsh, our attention was attracted by an unknown note of a bird on the ground, somewhat resembling the smack of the tongue repeated several times in succession.
At first. we thought it must be some animal; but, on remaining still for a few seconds, we saw several Great Snipes walking about and feeding within a few yards of us.
We watched them for some time, but they did not appear to take the smallest notice of us.
About the 10th of June we began to search for their nests; and though we could always find several birds, we did not succeed in finding any nests before June 24th, nearly a month after the birds arrived.
About this time, we found several places evidently scraped out by a bird as if for a nest.
They were in a part of the marsh in which we observed no other bird except the Great Snipe which was likely to do this.
Although we carefully looked at these scrapings several times subsequently, we never found any eggs in them; but on one occasion we took a nest with four eggs about six yards from one of these places.
The first nest we found contained four eggs; it was located on the edge of a small hillock, quite open, though there were dwarf birch trees growing all round, and one on the very hillock on which the nest was situated.
It consisted of nothing more than a hole scraped in the moss, in which the eggs had been deposited; there were neither grass nor leaves in it.
After a minute examination of it, and carefully marking the place, we went away to fetch our guns, the rain descending in such torrents that we had not been carrying them that day.
On our return in half-an-hour, the bird was again on the nest.
We put it up and shot it. It proved to be a female. The eggs were very slightly incubated.
The next day (June 25th), we found another nest within 200 yards of the former, containing only two eggs, and, as we thought the bird would be sure to lay more, we marked the place and left it.
It was situated on a small hillock, and much in the same sort of place as the former.
We found another nest on the 27th of the same month. The bird fluttered off and ran away, dragging its wings on the ground, and making a sort of drumming noise.
After taking four eggs from this nest, we returned to look at that found on the 25th, which contained two eggs.
We walked directly to the spot, and what was our horror at seeing nothing in the place but some apparently disturbed moss!
Our first impression was that the eggs had been destroyed by the Magpies or Crows that were constantly hunting for such food, or perhaps taken and eaten by one of the many boys who wandered about the marsh tending cattle; but on our beginning to express our fears, the bird, doubtless frightened by our voices, flew up, leaving a hole in the moss through which we could see there were still only two eggs as before.
Not doubting, however, that the bird would yet lay more, we again left it, and returned in a couple of days.
On approaching the spot, we observed the nest was again covered with moss.
This time we remained for a minute before the bird flew off, and on stooping down to examine it more closely, we could distinctly see the bird’s back through the moss.
Not liking this close inspection, it flew up, and we took the eggs, which proved to be only within a day or two of hatching.
The bird had evidently, after it was comfortably seated on its nest, torn up, with its long beak, the moss within its reach, and drawn it over its back till it was completely covered in the way described: there was not the least appearance of any hole through which the bird could have crept into its nest.
This circumstance of the nest being covered is the more curious as, out of six we found, it was the only one thus carefully concealed.
There were probably as many as 10 or 15 pairs of these birds in the marsh, which usually kept pretty close together, and were generally to be found in one particular spot.
Could this have been a congregation of male birds, the mates of which were breeding in the vicinity?
We saw the bird occasionally on swamps in the mountains, but it would have been a hopeless task to have searched for its nest there, though we have little doubt it breeds in other localities in the neighbourhood.
The down of a young Great Snipe, which we prepared and brought home, is not nearly so dark as that of the Common Snipe.
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