Description
This 29–31 cm long snipe has a stocky body and relatively short legs for a wader. Its adult plumage is dark rufous brown except for the lower belly and undertail, which are white with heavy brown barring. The grey bill is long, straight and fairly robust, and the legs and feet are grey. The sexes are similar. The juvenile plumage is unknown, but in most snipes species, young birds differ from adults only in showing pale fringes on the wing coverts.
In flight, Imperial Snipe looks heavy, broad-winged and short-tailed, and the banded belly contrasts with the dark breast and underwing. It has a shatteringly loud raucous song in its display flight, starting with single notes and moving on to double or triple notes.
Compared with other snipe with an overlapping range, the Imperial Snipe is obviously larger than the Magellan Snipe, which has clear pale stripes on its back and lacks barring on the lower belly. The race which occurs in the Andes, Gallinago paraguiaiae andina also has yellow legs.
Andean Snipe, Gallinago jamesoni, is similar in build to Imperial, but is paler on the throat and underwings, and has a less contrasted lower belly.
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