Bird Research News

Vol.4 No.10

Latham’s Snipe2007.10.17.

Oh-Jishigi (Jpn) Gallinago hardwickii

Morphology and classification

show a group display along with an aerial display in a lek(Nakamura & Shigemori 1995).

Classification: Charadriiformes Scolopacidae

Nest:

Total length:
Natural wing length:
Tail length:
Culmen length:
Tarsus length:
Weight:They build a plate-shaped nest
in a hollow on the ground at
the base of a bush and in thethicket of grass. In the study
site, they built a nest crushinggrass such as sedge in a spiraland placed a "lid" of grass on
top of it. The nest was 18cm by
14cm with a depth of 6cm. It issaid that a nest is usually built Photo 2. Nest and eggs of Latham's
at the edge of a marshland
Snipes.
distant from a lek, but this nest
was located in the vicinity of a lek site.

Distribution:
Latham's snipes breed primarily in Hokkaido, northernmost Japanand southern Sakhalin, Russia, but they also breed in the highlandsof Honshu and Kyushu and the estuary of the Amur River, Russia.
They winter along the east coast of Australia and in the northernpart of Tasmania Island. They are observed throughout Japan in
the migration season.

Habitat:In the breeding season they prefer the open habitats of a riverbed
and the lowlands, such as dry reed and sedge fields, Sasa (bamboograss) fields, meadows and cropland. In the wintering and migratory seasons they use principally the wetland and the shores of lakes
and marshes.

Life history
12

3

4

5

67

breeding period8910

11 12migration

Breeding system:

4

Latham's Snipes are promiscuous. Males neither takecare of the young nor defend food resources. They

♪ http://www.bird-research.jp/1_shiryo/koe/oojishigi2_070620_nagano_kaji.mp3
Kyoko Kajimoto

Migration:

22:00

20:00

18:00

16:00

In the breeding period Latham's 1500
Snipe males carry out a display 1000
flight, making a loud noise by the air
500
resistance of the wide-opened tailfeathers when they dive after cir- 0
mid late early mid late early mid latecling over the territory. Depending
April
May
June
on the breeding sites and regions, Fig. 1. Seasonal change of thethe display flight starts between 5thdaily observation frequenand 20th of April, and its peak becy of Latham's Snipe
gins from late April to early May
display flights in Tomakomai City, Hokkaido
and continues until late May. It decreases gradually afterwards, and is120
hardly observed in early July (Nitta
the sunrise:100
4 o'clockthe sunset& Fujimaki 1985, Nakamura & 80
18 o'clock
Shigemori 1995, Iida 1991).
60
In the study site of Tomakomai, 40
Hokkaido, for instance, the display 20fight reached its peak in early May 0and almost ceased to be performedin late June (Fig. 1). On the other
hand, the display flight reaches its Fig. 2. Display flight frequency of Latham's Snipes per
daily peak before and after sunrise
15 minutes on a day in lateand before and after sunset (Fig. 2).
April in Tomakomai City,
14:00

Distribution and Habitat

wintering
period2000

Display flight:

0:00

Latham's Snipes croak like "Djepp" or "Zbee, zbee". They call not
only on the ground but also on tree branches and utility poles.
When they show a display flight in the breeding period, they fly incircles calling "Djij, jij, jij, jij, jeee" and dive muttering "Zbyahk,zbyahk" with a loud windy noise of "Za-za-za-za-za", which arises
from the air resistance of the tail feathers. They utter "Chiryoo,chir-chiryoo", when they go out of the nose dive phase to shoot up.

The clutch size is generally 4 eggs. The egg is grayish brown orlight gray with dark brown and pale purple flecks scattering densely on the blunt end. The egg that the author discovered was about
3.7mm by 2.8mm and 19g in weight.

12:00

Vocalization:Egg:

8:00

Males and females are similar inplumage coloration. The abdomenis white. The superciliary is yellowish white and conspicuous,
tapering to the nape. They have a
black eye stripe with a lateral
streak under it, which is similar incolor to the superciliary. They
also have a brownish black temporal stripe with fine brown Photo 1. Latham's Snipe. Ryugasaki City, Ibaraki Pref. Julyflecks. The scapular is brownish
2007. [Hisashi Kishi]
black with pale yellow outer edge.
They are paler in color than the other four snipes observed in Japan. The dark horizontal band in the wing covert is conspicuous in
the adult of this species. The tail feathers are brown with a blackbase and black band next to a white tip. But the outer few feathersof the tail have black and white flecks. In contrast to adults, juveniles have flight feathers with a white tip, and the dark stripe of thewing covert looks U-shaped.

10:00

Appearance:

6:00

Total length after Kirihara et al. 2000, and the other measurements (mean ± S.D.; n =40 in males and 24 in females) after Ura 2005.

4:00♀149.2 ± 3.00mm♀64.6 ± 2.79mm♀72.8 ± 2.75mm♀38.3 ± 2.27mm♀186.17 ± 38.68g

2:0028-33cm♂ 148.7 ± 3.55mm♂ 67.5 ± 3.34mm♂ 68.6 ± 3.52mm♂ 36.4 ± 1.09mm♂ 171.35 ± 33.98g

Hokkaido.

There is little information on the spring migration, but Latham's
Snipes leave the wintering grounds of Australia from late February
to early March. The autumn migration starts in early July andreaches its peak between 15th and 20th of August (Ohata 1989)
and in early September. After the second peak it rapidly slackens
off and ends by the end of September.

Diet and foraging behavior
The diet of Latham’s Snipes consists of grass seeds as well as soil
invertebrates, such as annelids (earthworms), gressorial insects,spiders, molluscs, isopods and centipedes. The fecal analysis of
Latham's Snipes wintering in Australia showed that the diet wascomprised of the imagoes and larvae of aquatic beetles and diptera, the larvae of trichoptera, adults of hydrachnellae and grassseeds (Todd 2000), but aquatic beetles represented the largest proportion.
Latham’s Snipes forage during the day and night in the winteringBird Research News

Vol.4 No.10

2007.10.17.

© Japan Bird Research Association
Sumiyoshi 1-29-9, Fuchu, Tokyo, Japanground, but they usually feed in open habitats, such as the tidal flatin the daytime and in the muddy ground covered with shallow
water adjacent to a thicket of herbaceous plants during the night.
The foraging success rate is higher in soft muddy habitats (Todd2000). In the study site (the shore of Benten-numa Marsh in Tomakomai, Hokkaido) which is the muddy ground dotted with communities of reeds and sweet gales, however, this species was not
sighted in the daytime, even though they were frequently detected
at night in the migration period.

Topics of ecology, behavior and conservation● Sexual dimorphism

Number of birds

250
Latham's Snipe males are said toMale
be smaller than females. A theory
Female200
has been proposed that there is agreater difference in body size
150
between males and females in the100
birds that perform more acrobatic
aerial displays (Figuerola 1999).
50
The author captured 64 adult birds
and 456 juveniles, measured their0141618
body size and weight, and deterNumber of tail feathers
mined their sexes based on DNA
analysis in order to study the rela- Fig. 3. Relationship between thenumber of tail feathers andtionship between the sexual differthe sexes.
ence in body size and the display
flight.
The study showed that females were significantly greater in culmen and tarsus lengths for both adults and juveniles. On the other
hand, males had significantly longer tail feathers than females inadult birds, which was not true of juveniles. The number of the tailfeathers varied between individuals, ranging from 14 to 18 feathers. Most (82.7%) of the 18-tail-feathered birds were males, andmost (74.8%) of the 16-tail-feathered birds and all the 14-tailfeathered birds were females (Ura et al. 2005).
Males are smaller with more tail feathers whichbecome longer as they mature probably because a tail with greater drag makes a louder
noise in a display flight and a smaller body
helps increase aerial maneuverability. It is assumed, therefore, that the sexual dimorphismof Latham's Snipes evolved as a result thatmales more specialized in aerial displays at- Photo 3. Latham'sSnipe in display
tracted more females; a case of sexual selecflight.
tion.

● Present state of Latham's Snipes
Latham's Snipes are designated as a Near Threatened species in the
red list of the Ministry of the Environment. It has been pointed out
for a long time that the species and its habitats have decreased in
Honshu (the largest main island of Japan). It has thought to be
recently declined in Hokkaido, northernmost Japan as well. The
abundance of Latham's Snipes wintering in Australia declined inthe 1970's, which resulted in removing them from the game species list around 1980.
The study conducted in Tochigi Prefecture, central Honshu
showed that their habitats and population markedly decreased in
number in 2003 and 2004 compared with 1986 (Hirano et al.
2005). It is assumed that the habitat loss is principally responsible
for their decline, but they decreased in meadows as well despite
their unchanged conditions. In the Tokachi region, Hokkaido, on
the other hand, Latham's Snipe abundance also declined in 2001
compared to 1978-1991. They decreased in the cropland andmeadows, but they did not in farmland with remaining woods,
which can be attributed to the undergrowth of Sasa nipponica in

バードリサーチ生態図鑑
the woods that they frequently use as a nest site (Kitajima & Fujimaki 2003). Cropland and meadows alone would not satisfy theirbreeding requirements. The author had the impression that
Latham's Snipes also declined in my former study site of theYufutsu Wetland (Tomakomai, Hokkaido), where a large proportion of the reed bed was recently changed into cropland.
The flat and open environment which Latham's Snipes prefer has avery strong possibility for industrial and housing development.
Consequently, they might be gone without being noticed not onlyin Honshu but also in Hokkaido which is their stronghold. Before
it is too late, therefore, it is important, at least in Hokkaido, toobtain detailed information on the major habitats as well as thebreeding sites and population through regular monitoring and beready to take prompt action when an unusual change occurs to
Latham's Snipes.

Literature
Figuerola J. 1999. A comparative study on the evolution of reversed sexual size
dimorphism in monogamous waders. BJLS 67:1-18.
Hirano T., Kimijima M., Kobori S., Kobori M., Nonaka J. & Shiga Y. 2005. A
decline of the Latham's Snipes in Tochigi Prefecture. Strix 23:31-38. [J+E]
Iida T. 1991. Breeding behavior and habitat of the Latham's Snipe Gallinago hardwickii. Strix 10:31-50. [J+E]
Kirihara M., Yamagata N. & Yoshino T. 2000. 550 Birds of Japan (Waterfowl).
Bun-ichi Sogo Pub., Tokyo. [J]Kitajima Y. & Fujimaki Y. 2003. Latham's Snipe Gallinago hardwickii population
trends in the Tokachi Plain,Hokkaido. J. Yamashina Inst. Ornithol. 35:12-18.
[J+E]
Nakamura H. & Shigemori K. 1990. Diurnal activity and social structure of theLatham's Snipe Gallinago hardwickii in the breeding period. J. Yamashina Inst.
Ornithol. 22:85-113. [J+E]
Nitta K. & Fujimaki Y. 1985. Seasonal change in daily activity of Gallinago hardwickii in the breeding season. Tori 34:49-55. [J+E]
Oh-hata K. 1989. Migration of the Japanese Snipe Gallinago hardwickii at Tokisata
river, the mouth of Lake Utonai, Hokkaido. Strix 8:139-144. [J+E]
Todd K.M. 2000. Feeding ecology of Laham's Snipe Gallinago hardwickii in theLower Hunter Valley. Emu 100:133-138.
Ura T., Azuma N., Hayama S. & Higashi S. 2005. Sexual dimorphism of Latham’ssnipe (Gallinago hardwickii). Emu 105:259-262.
Languages of literature cited other than English: [J] in Japanese, [J+E] in Japanesewith English summary.

[Hisashi Kishi]Author
Tatsuya URA

Nature Conservation Division,
Wild Bird Society of JapanI started to work for the Wild-Bird Society of Japan through the studyof Latham's Snipes two years ago. I owe it to this snipe that I havebeen engaged in bird conservation. I
would like to put effort into the monitoring of grassland and wetland birds andtheir habitats, such as Latham's Snipes
and Eastern Marsh Harriers because
these species are readily exposed to arisk of population decline. Now I am
mostly involved in desk work, but I
have been trying to keep myself in good
shape for field work.
ura@wbsj.org

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