Living in a very rural area, and being a wildlife biologist who tends to look at the big picture, I usually like to cover a larger area than most people to get an overview of the birdlife in the area. It also gives me a chance to see where the most promising location to photograph might be, what time of day is preferable to take advantage the best light, and make a plan for photographing at a given location. But often, I come across an immediate situation that offers a photo opportunity, or at least the promise of a photo op materializing.

Friday afternoon was an exceptional day for birding, including a series of nice photo ops that included a variety of ducks, four species of geese, Sharp-tailed Grouse, the first Swainson’s Hawk of the season, singing meadowlarks, displaying Horned Larks, and more. What really caught my eye as I drove down an all but abandoned gravel road was a little motion that popped out of the grass as I passed. As I drove past I was barely able to spy a pair of Wilson’s Snipe walking in tandem, probably in a form of pursuit display between mates or potential mates.

The pair of Wilson’s Snipe was performing a “ground chase display,” with the female leading the male as he attempted to add other displays to the mix.

I can’t even recall seeing two snipe together before, so I was disappointed that I was driving too fast to react to the snipe sighting. My vehicle’s wheels passed within a couple feet of the snipe, so I figured they surely flushed in reaction, but 60 yards down the road I turned around and motored slowly toward the snipe sighting. Suddenly my disappointment turned to excited potential as I saw the snipe walking through short dry grass near the road’s edge.

That’s when I realized that driving past the courting snipe turned out to be a good thing, for by passing the birds and approaching them from the opposite side, the sun was now at my back, so I had perfect late afternoon sunlight illuminating the snipe action. It also positioned me on the best side of the road to photograph out the driver’s window.

Using my vehicle as a mobile blind, I eased forward a foot at a time until I was close enough to focus my 400mm telephoto lens on both snipe simultaneously. As I turned the vehicle off, I was thrilled to see the female lead the male onto the open edge of the dirt road, then toward me!

As the female hesitated a moment, the male stood upright in anticipation of performing a “strutting display.”

Snipe Displays

I began taking documentary photographs of the pair as they walked closer and closer with the male continually trying to advance to the side of the female, where he could display with the apparent intent of trying to stop her advance. This portion of snipe mating behavior is known as a “ground chase display,” and the female continued by walking the male back into the short grass, then back in my direction. When the male pressed the female too close, she would zig this way, then zag that way; or take a little hop into the air, spreading her wings and gliding mere inches back to the ground, the male reacting by taking a similar flying hop. These little hop-flights are known as “flight leap displays,” which are mixed into the ground chase.

When the male did have a chance to work his way to the front of the female, he stretched his neck and legs as tall as possible, standing on his tip-toes, flaring his short neck feathers toward the female, and dropping his wings lower than his tail. Eventually, the female reacted to the male’s advances and the pair performed a low-intensity “strutting display” in tandem, with both snipe stretching tall while walking on their toes. It seemed copulation was inevitable, but each time the male pressed the possibility, the female resumed her ground chase.

Eventually, when the female stopped, the male immediately moved into position to perform a “strutting display.”

I was surprised when the snipe crossed the road in front of me, rather than continuing to display before my camera. I hadn’t anticipated that move, but as it turned out, there were no more moments of interaction during this ground chase display, at least not within my view. The female picked up the pace and briskly led the male off the road and along the edge of a shallow wetland on the passenger side of my van. I stretched over to the other window, but without hesitating again, the female tucked her long bill into an opening in taller vegetation with the male following in tandem close behind her – never to be seen again. I waited, hoping, but that was it.

Whoo, that was a fun, action-packed behavioral interaction, me documenting it all on the edge of action. That’s the kind of bird behavior I so enjoy being privy to; you feel like you’re part of the action, like the birds are revealing themselves to you in an intimate act of sharing their secrets that few people have witnessed before.

Sometimes, when the male became too aggressive, the female broke the tension with a “flight leap display.”

Photo Review

Although I passed along a lot of important photography techniques in the above description from the field, they are dispersed throughout my story line and may not be obvious, so permit me to share them here in a more obvious manner, along with a couple additional insights:

– Occasionally try covering more of an area to monitor where the birds in the area; plan for future photo opportunities, and take advantage of photo ops you encounter along the way.

– Use your vehicle as a comfortable mobile blind. Pull safely off the side of the road in the best possible position to photograph your subject with respect to the direction of the sunlight.

– Keep the sun at your back, so the sunlight illuminates your subject as directly as possible.

– Turn off the vehicle any time you are photographing to keep your camera lens as stable as possible.

– Stabilize your lens on top of a slightly raised window or the side of the window frame to reduce any body shake that may be transferred as you hold your camera. Also hold your breath when you press the shutter button.

– On a sunny day, I preset my camera; then when I’m in position to photograph, I double-check the settings and adjust any if needed. During sunny days, I preset the ISO to 400, the aperture at f8; and the resulting shutter speed will usually be between 1/1200 to 1/2000 – fast enough to stop most motion.

– I set the Mode Dial on my camera to the Av preference; then I set my aperture and the camera automatically provides the associated shutter speed as determined by the amount of available light and the preset aperture (f-stop).

– This might seem backwards, since we almost always want a fast shutter speed, but I also wanted ample aperture to be sure both snipe were in the zone of focus. With full sunlight at a 45 degree angle from behind me, I knew I would get a corresponding fast shutter speed if I used an f8 aperture, and I double-checked all the settings that are provided on the base of my camera’s viewfinder as I composed the photos – especially the shutter speed to make sure I was right.

– Try to anticipate the next move of the birds you are photographing, although that was easier said than done with the unpredictable mating behavior of the pair of snipe. The female zigged and zagged – a few steps this way, then she’d turn 90 degrees to the right or left, often instigated by the aggressiveness of the male as he pressed from behind or the side. I focused on the female, and hoped the male would be in focus too – and the f8 aperture was adequate in keeping both birds in the focused field of view, except maybe in the third photo.

– And then there is the luck factor, and I enjoyed great luck during this photo episode!

The f8 aperture setting was adequate to keep both birds in the field of focus during most of the photo session, while throwing the background out of focus. This provided a pleasing more-uniform background color and helped to “pop” the birds into greater focus.

Behavioral Documentation

This opportunity to photograph the rarely viewed mating behavior of Wilson’s Snipe made me think about a similar photo series I documented last spring, when I encountered a pair of American Bitterns as the male displayed to the female. I shared that event with readers in the May 29 issue of The Birding Wire, which can be accessed in the Archives of this publication (click the word Archives at the top of the page).

Spring provides almost unlimited opportunities to document the lives of birds, ranging from simple feeding or hunting bouts to migration flights and even innate behavioral displays. The more you are in the field with your camera, the better the chances you have to find and photograph birds at their best, and sometimes, they permit you into their world.

Article and photos by Paul Konrad

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