By Owen Williams, Wildlife Artist, GWCT Wales Chairman and Trustee
I can’t recall exactly when I saw my first snipe, but I think it must have been around the age of seven whilst helping my father drive our cattle across a boggy piece of ground on our family hill farm in the early 1960’s. At that time snipe were a very common wintering species on our Ceredigion hill farm, and on a summer’s evening the sound of a drumming snipe didn’t have one looking skywards in surprise and delight as it does today.
As I reflect on the mid 1970’s when my father decided to sell our beef herd for economic reasons, I can see how this had a significant impact on the wet habitat of our farm. The poached wet patches of the bogs so favoured by snipe as feeding areas soon grew over with sedges and Molinia, rushes colonised wet grassy areas, the lack of insect-rich cowpats on our pastures and areas around gates no longer poached all conspired to make the farm less suitable for snipe to breed and overwinter on.
On my yearly trips to Tiree to work my dog on a mixed wild shoot I have witnessed whisps of migratory snipe make landfall on that Hebridean island and they invariably drop into fields grazed by cattle, confirming the vital link.
Like woodcock, the picture regarding snipe is complicated by the UK having both a breeding population and large numbers of migrants that overwinter here each year. If we are to improve the overall conservation status of the species it is critical that we get a better understanding of this mix and exactly where our migrant snipe come from and their migratory routes to get here. Now that tracking technology has developed small a very light weight satellite tags we are in a position to gather a lot of data crucial to informing how we best improve their population status. This would be in collaboration with other countries in Europe such as France who have now been tagging snipe for several years. Sharing information through the IUCN hosted Woodcock and Snipe Specialists Group (WSSG) provides the quality of information that makes targeted conservation action much more effective on an international scale.
A recent email from the French team tagging snipe and forwarded to me by Andrew Hoodless asked for help retrieving a tag that was still sending data via the satellite but had not moved for three days on a bog in north Pembrokeshire. The conclusion was that this bird had probably been predated and that it might be possible to retrieve the tracker to be used again on another snipe. The remarkable accuracy of modern trackers meant that we were able to pinpoint the location to within a few feet on what Google Earth showed was a boggy meadow.
After a 90-minute drive from my home in the neighbouring country of Ceredigion, I arrived at the location close to the Preseli Mountains. Using the GPS app on my phone I walked into the bog somewhat disheartened by the density of the standing vegetation making it difficult to see anything at ground level. As I neared the coordinates given to me, I saw eight snipe flush from a small area of vegetation flattened by the recent storm Amy, and as I neared, the sight of droppings and feathers confirmed this has been used by snipe for a while. Careful that each footstep didn’t trample the lost tag out of sight, I slowly scanned the area for the ridiculously small 2cm x 1cm x 1cm device with a thin wire aerial attached. Amazingly after 10 minutes of searching I spotted it lying cryptically camouflaged against its underlying platform of flattened vegetation.
Retreating through the tall autumnal stems of meadowsweet, brambles and rushes, I was elated with my success and the knowledge that this tag could now be used again on another snipe contributing even more to our understanding of snipe migration.
Having been closely involved with WSSG through working on tagging and ringing woodcock with Andrew Hoodless I understand the great value of this work and that is why I am now keen to help promote the GWCT Snipe Appeal. To assist in raising funding for our UK snipe tags I am offering my (unframed) watercolour of a pair of snipe for sale to the highest bidder. It gives me huge pleasure in firing up a synergy between the two passions of my life, art and science, and thus play a modest role in the conservation of a species that inspired me to pick up a pencil and draw my fist picture of a snipe at the age of eleven.
View The GWCT Snipe Appeal Auction.