Small birds, big moments

Tony Bracci looks at the very particular characteristics of snipe and woodcock

Snipe and woodcock shooting is a niche sporting activity. It is more commonly encountered as part of a driven or walked-up day when shooting pheasants and partridge, but small driven days and specific walked-up days can be found in some parts of the country.

The snipe (Gallinago gallinago) season is from 12 August (1 September in Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man) to 31 January. The woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) season runs from 1 October (1 September in Scotland) until 31 January. Snipe is the smallest quarry species, apart from the jack snipe, which is protected in the UK other than in Northern Ireland, where the season is the same as for the common snipe.

Woodcock and snipe are native to the UK, but autumn brings greater numbers of birds from neighbouring lands that winter here over the season. Snipe can come from Scandinavia and woodcock can come from much further afield. A study a few years ago estimated there were about 60,000 pairs of common snipe breeding in the UK, with a further million or more wintering here. The woodcock is a little more common at 75,000 breeding pairs, with a winter population of approximately 1.5 million.

Zigzag

Snipe, although small, is quite a stocky wading bird with a long bill. Most of its body is brown with yellow stripes on its back and a pale underbelly. It weighs around 110g and has a wing span of approximately 46cm and has an average lifespan of about three years. Being a wader, it fee ds mainly on insects, worms and vegetation. Snipe favour wet grassland and boggy moorland. The bird is well camouflaged and sits tight when in danger, flying at the last minute in a zigzag fashion while gaining height and speed before its flight straightens.

The woodcock is slightly larger with similar short legs and long bill. It is primarily nocturnal, spending most of the day in dense cover. Weighing 240g-420g with a wingspan of 55cm-65cm, it has an average lifespan of or around four years. It has brown mottled plumage, giving excellent camouflage as it probes the ground for worms and insects. As the name suggests, it favours woodlands rather than grasslands and moorlands.

The shooting of snipe and woodcock is managed by each shooting estate as part of the balancing act of the ecosystem. This is a factor that many anti-shooting people don’t see. As I travel around the country visiting many shoots coaching on the peg, I hear a similar briefing. We all know the snipe and woodcock numbers are not at their peak and many shoots are requesting that they are not shot. This is not a mandate that has been forced upon us by a higher office but something we are doing ourselves to help the situation.

On my own shoot we haven’t shot woodcock for five years as the numbers are lower than they were 10 years ago. This is not down to overshooting but other factors such as the woods and coverts being dryer, the supply of food and migratory factors. On the shoot of which I am shoot captain, the estate owner has said Guns may, if a safe opportunity arises, take one woodcock each but only if they are going to take it home and eat it. This usually gets the message home; they are not just a target to be shot at while the numbers are low.

Bountiful

Harvesting a bountiful crop can be of benefit but it is all about balance. I am happy to visit Argentina and shoot a large number of doves in a day because I can see there are so many of them. I can see the damage they do to crops, stripping them bare, so there is a need to control the numbers. When I walk around my woods and only see one or two woodcock a week in the wintertime, I have no desire to shoot or to eat them.

The last snipe I shot was on a beaters’ day at Foley Manor on the Hampshire, Surrey and West Sussex border. That was on 30 January 2018 and I was very happy to be invited. Although I spend a lot of time in the field, on very few occasions am I shooting. After a couple of great pheasant drives it was announced that a couple of the wetter setaside fields would be driven for snipe.

I knew what a snipe was and could easily identify one, so I volunteered to beat the drive with my young spaniel. I was asked to stand so I made my way to the corner of the field behind the line, mainly to observe the drive and to help pick-up as my dog had not picked-up snipe before.

I’m sure you can guess what happened. After seeing more snipe than I had ever done – the collective noun for snipe is a wisp – zigzagging over the line, none were taken until the last one out. It flew left and right over the Guns and no one connected with it until it got to me at the back of the field, where its flight line straightened. I mounted my gun and killed it cleanly with the first barrel. As I carefully watched it drop to get a good mark, the dog was already off. After a short hunt the dog came out with the snipe.

It was a special moment that I remember clearly. I also recall shooting some great pheasants on the Plantation drive that day.

Rich and tender

The snipe was taken home, hung for a couple of days then plucked and roasted. If it is a small snipe it may only need 10 minutes at 230°C. It can dry out very easily so I recommend some bacon over the breasts and water in the roasting tray. Cooked with head on and guts in the meat is rich and tender. The innards, once cooked, are spread on buttered toast, which may sound odd but if you didn’t know would be like warm pâté on toast.

Most game birds are sold in a brace – that is to say a cock and a hen – but snipe can come in threes; or ‘fingers’, as that’s how many you can hold in between your fingers on one hand. The snipe has a great history in shooting that you may be unaware of. It was used as a verb in the 1770s by British soldiers in India where a hunter skilled enough to shoot a snipe was called a ‘sniper’ and there is evidence of the word in the sense of common usage as a sharpshooter from 1824.

There is no real clay target to compare with the flight of a snipe or woodcock, other than, perhaps, a ZZ/Helice target (see p44). Practise taking instinctive quick going away targets because it can be good to take a quick shot before it starts to zigzag. Try a longer shot at a going-away target as the flight may straighten at distance. Snipe and woodcock can seem a long way away although still in shot, the deception coming from their size.

Driven snipe can be a challenge, as the birds have a pale underbelly and can be hard to pick out against the sky. If specifically on a snipe or woodcock shoot, smaller shot sizes of No 8s or 7s are preferred. However, as most are shot when out for pheasants and partridge, they can be shot just as well with No 6s. Normal game chokes of quarter and half if walking-up and utilise the more open choke first with your barrel selector or front trigger on a side-by-side.

“A hunter skilled enough to shoot the tiny bird was called a sniper”