Gallinago gallinago
The common snipe is famous for its zig-zag flight and disproportionately long beak. In the Danube Delta, it is one of the most sought-after birds by ornithologists on the edges of muddy channels, but it is very difficult to notice due to its perfect camouflage.
Cryptic brown and buff plumage with bold yellowish-buff stripes along the back and crown that mimic dry grass stems with near-perfect fidelity. The bill is extraordinarily long and straight, with sensitive nerve endings at the tip for detecting prey underground or in mud without direct vision.
Favours low-vegetation marshes, reedbeds and the muddy margins of lakes and secondary channels. In the Delta, it occupies flooded grasslands and the soft-mud edges of backwater canals, where its probing feeding action can sometimes be seen from a distance — though the bird itself usually stays hidden.
Probes mud with rapid, rhythmic sewing-machine-like movements — the bill entering and leaving the substrate dozens of times per minute. When flushed, it rises with a sharp "scaap" call and twists away in fast, unpredictable zig-zags that make tracking extremely difficult. Males produce an eerie drumming sound — a winnowing of the outer tail feathers in diving display flights.
While mostly a migrant and winter visitor, some pairs breed in the Delta. The nest is a small grass-lined scrape hidden in vegetation close to water. Chicks are precocial and leave the nest almost immediately after hatching.
Least Concern (LC) globally. Critically dependent on the maintenance of wetland habitat with accessible soft mud. Drainage and conversion of wet grasslands to farmland is the principal threat to its foraging grounds.