Snipe?

[Mother Bear]

Recently on these beautiful sunny evenings I have had some lovely walks at the Munsary Peatlands Nature Reserve just off the Causewaymire, at Achavanich near Loch Stemster. Heard a very mysterious sound.....not very good at describing bird sounds!......but checked on the RSPB website and i think it may have been a snipe. Apparently it's the sound of the wind in the fanned out tail feathers as the bird does a nose dive ....so I read. Can anyone confirm this? Have also seen and heard Lapwings, and there was a goose there this eve, but forgot to take my binocs this time! Plenty of skylarks too ...seems to be something different each time..it's lovely. Would be very excited to see the hoopoe tho!

[Skifter]

You are quite right I was at Loch Stemster last night and heard a snipe drumming. Some of the older people call them heather bleaters which sums up the sound nicely.

[Mother Bear]

OK, thanks for that. Yes I like that description too!

[spurtle]

You are quite right I was at Loch Stemster last night and heard a snipe drumming. Some of the older people call them heather bleaters which sums up the sound nicely.

Many langauges compare the noise of snipe drumming to the bleat of a goat, so that sort of fits in

[Aaldtimer]

As a wee bit of useless information, the name of the bird gave us the word Sniper, the waterfowler with the ability to shoot said bird with it's erratic flying habit.
A much prized skill by the military!
Having seen a dead Snipe, I wondered why anyone would want to.
No much eating on a Snipe!