Wilson's Snipe

Wilson's snipe is a stocky, well-camouflaged shorebird with a bill that looks almost too long for its body, short greenish legs, and bold dark stripes running down a mottled brown back, with whitish, barred underparts below. It used to be lumped in with the Old World common snipe as a subspecies, until it was split out as its own species in 2003, distinguished by a narrower white trailing edge on the wing and an extra pair of tail feathers. Look for it in marshes, wet meadows, and flooded fields, probing soft mud for invertebrates — and listen for it overhead too, where a strange, pulsing, winnowing sound comes from air rushing over its outer tail feathers during display flights.