Bygone birding: Duo watched common snipe on unexpected perch - the upright twig of larch tree in Russia

                                                            

John Harvie-Brown - trip to Russia with pal Henry Seebohm

From an account by Henry Seebohm and John Harvie-Brown of their visit to Russia as reported in an 1876 edition of The Ibis journal.

We were not a little surprised when we first became acquainted with the arboreal habits of the snipe at Habariki, and saw one of these birds perched 70 feet from the ground on the topmost upright twig of a bare larch where, one would have thought, it could scarcely find sufficient foothold. 

With its head lower than its body and tail, it sat there, uttering at intervals a curious double 'clucking' note while others of the same species were  drumming high in the air over the marsh. 

To put all beyond a doubt, Harvie-Brown shot one in this peculiar position. 

Nor is the common snipe the only bird which we found perching freely in Northern Russia.

Others included snow bunting, pipits and  common gull.

There can be little doubt that this habit was induced, in the first instance, by the flooding of great tracts of country by the annual overflow of the rivers in spring just at the time of the passage of the migratory flights, and, further, that what was originally forced upon them has become, by use, a favourite habit.