Early April: Wilson's Snipes are arriving in n. Ohio in good numbers, although they're not up to peak passage yet. I'm seeing them in several areas with shallow water, including the flooded fields down on Benton-Carroll Road and a couple of the impoundments at the edge of Ottawa NWR.
I saw my first Wilson's Snipes when I was ten years old, and I've probably seen thousands, even tens of thousands, at all times of year. So I thought I knew the species well. But I'd always thought of it as a solitary bird. Walking into a marsh where snipes were common, I would see them flush singly and fly off as individuals, each on its own zigzag trajectory. While many members of the sandpiper / snipe family are quite gregarious, forming large flocks in migration and winter, I had never considered Wilson's Snipe to be sociable at all.
Here in n.w. Ohio, where I've lived for almost 7 years, I've often seen groups of Wilson's Snipes foraging together during migration. Gradually it's dawning on me that they will, in fact, form flocks. Today at Ottawa NWR, a harrier made a low pass over a marshy impoundment, and a flock of 13 snipes flew out together, circled around several times, and then returned and landed together in the marsh. No question, they were acting as a tight, cohesive flock. So at least during migration, in Ohio, it's not accurate for me to classify them as solitary birds.
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