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There is quite a few bare spots on south facing hills here in Lunenburg county Steve.
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and little frost in the ground. Checking these spots on foot is another matter.
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A lot of small brooks are open and have made an opening where they flow
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into a Stillwater, lake or pond. Stonefly nymphs are quite active at this time of year
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and these are the usual spots where snipe are found. One of the joys of early
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trout fishing is hearing the snipe in the evening.
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Enjoy the last of winter
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Paul
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<br/>> On April 2, 2015 at 2:11 PM Stephen Shaw <srshaw@Dal.Ca> wrote:
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<br/>> Going to our car parked on our blacktop driveway in Halifax this morning, I surprised an unfamiliar small bird with a long bill which flew up and landed further up the driveway and just rested there. It presumably was a woodcock, more likely than a snipe. We got a good look at it but because of the strong backlighting from sunlight reflected off the blacktop, couldn't make out details of the plumage to be sure. It had a drop of fluid on the end of the bill, presumably a product of the salt gland? We thought it might have been exhausted, but it didn't wish to be captured and flew off strongly.
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<br/>> In looking this up in Sibley (2000), the snipe alternative is called a common snipe, Gallinago gallinago, but in a 2008 Smithsonian book that's a Eurasian rarity and the one here is identified as Wilson's snipe, G. delicata. Is the later book's identification of the snipe species current?
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<br/>> It's zero pickings for a woodcock here at present still with a couple of feet of snow, but my daughter says that the mud flats on the nearby Northwest Arm here are exposed, so there would be a possibility to feed there. Would a woodcock normally forage at tidal mudflats on the edge of saltwater? You'd wonder how much fat could be left on a migrant's body to see it through until the snow melts, or not.
<br/>> Steve
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