Snipe in courtship worth seeing, hearing

while emitting low rough "Scape! Scape!" calls.

The snipe has long been hunted but is hard to hit; bringing down a fleeing bird takes a crack marksman. Successful gunners were dubbed “snipers,” and that’s the origin of the term sniper for ace marksmen.

Snipes are normally shy and retiring, but the need to procreate brings males out of their shells. Commencing in early spring, males begin an aerial-courtship display that must be seen to be believed.

The usually groundbound male takes wing and climbs so high that he appears to be a speck. Imbued with the euphoria that must come with being able to shoot hundreds of feet into the air, the snipe begins to “sing.” With its tail.

To sing with the wind, the courting snipe whips into shallow dives while flaring its tail. Air distorted by the tail feathers creates an eerie, ethereal winnowing sound like the distant quaver of an amplified musical saw. Smitten with his bizarre sound-making ability, a singing snipe might remain aloft for a half-hour.

Although Wilson’s snipe is one of North America’s most abundant shorebirds, most Ohioans have probably never seen one. Scores pass through in migration, headed to northern nesting grounds, but breeders are very rare here. Most nesting records come from the northern tier of counties.

Thus, while making an Earth Day foray to Glacier Ridge Metro Park, I was pleased to discover two territorial snipes sky-singing over a large wet meadow. I had seen courting snipes here in April 2017, and I suspect that they might nest in the park.

Prior to John Deere’s 1837 launch of his steel plow, Ohio hosted about 5 million acres of wetlands. It didn’t take people long to figure out that wetland soils grew great crops, and Deere’s device offered a way to transform the wetlands into America’s breadbasket.

Today, only about 10 percent of Ohio’s wetlands remain, most of them converted to bean, corn and wheat fields. Wetland dwellers that probably were historically common Ohio breeders, such as the snipe, dwindled.

Glacier Ridge is a green oasis surrounded by crop fields and the ever-encroaching sprawl of suburbia. Thanks to Metro Parks for saving a piece of our wetland past, and the snipes that come with it.