Puna Snipe Gallinago andina Scientific name definitions

The Puna Snipe is a small snipe of high elevation bogs and stream margins, fairly common in moist areas of puna from 3,000 to 4,600m. It ranges from northern Peru into Bolivia and northern Chile and Argentina. A miniature version of the South American Snipe (and sometimes considered a subspecies thereof), the Puna Snipe has a shorter bill and bright yellow legs. It can be distinguished by an unmarked, white belly, a nearly white underwing, and a thin white trailing edge to the wings. In flight, it displays a web of narrow white markings on the upperside, the result of a white tips on the wing coverts, white edges of the tail, and distinct pale stripes along the mantle. Flushes with vertical flight followed by “jumps”.

22·5–25 cm; 65–105 g. A comparatively small-bodied snipe of high elevations, differing from G. paraguaiae in being marginally smaller, with a proportionately shorter and finer bill , and shorter, brighter yellow legs, which reach just to tail tip in flight (rather than extending beyond the tail in G. paraguaiae); also darker face pattern , with distinct dark eyestripe that is complete below the eye, as well as more white on outer rectrices and on outer primary, while the primaries do not extend beyond the tertials at rest. Sexes alike. Juvenile apparently undescribed. Compared to locally sympatric G. jamesoni, present species is smaller and markedly paler, with an unmarked, clean whitish abdominal region and a white trailing edge to the wing, visible in flight. Race innotata, differs from nominate in lacking densely barred underwing-coverts, instead these are immaculate white (also unlike either race of G. paraguaiae), while the outer webs to the primaries are narrowly edged and tipped white.

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Inhabits boggy rivers high in puna zone of Andes, between 3000 m and 4600 m in Peru, at 2000–5000 m in Chile and mainly at 2000–4000 m in NW Argentina (see Movements); occupies boggy ground with cushion-plants, but also areas of rushes, reeds and grassland, including edges of lakes, rivers and sometimes in comparatively open reed marshes.

Diet basically unknown, although presumably similar to that of other South American Gallinago; foraging behaviour similar to G. paraguaiae.

Song from ground comprises a fast-paced but mellow-sounding “tip-tip-tip-tip...”, “cut-cut-cut-cut...” or “dyak dyak dyak .... dyuc dyuc dyuc...”, while in flight  the winnowing display sound, produced by air passing through the spread rectrices, is a long, stuttering whoosh, rendered “tch’ch’ch’ch’”; flight describes broad circles punctuated by shallow dives, with the winnowing sound given in horizontal flight following each dive. Gives a sharp  , dry “chep chep chep!”, “che’che’che” or “dzeetch” when flushed or taking flight of own accord.

Not globally threatened (Least Concern). No population estimates available. Range large and relatively little impacted by human activities over much of it. Nominate race widespread and apparently common in puna, though least so in more arid S parts of range. Race innotata poorly known and apparently confined to lower reaches of Loa Valley, Antofagasta (N Chile), although the species has recently been recorded at c. 4000 m in the same valley, the taxon concerned is apparently unknown; the taxonomic status of innotata demands confirmation, as its small range might make it of conservation concern should it prove to be specifically distinct. Considered to be fairly common in Peru, but uncommon in Chile. In Ecuador, known from just a single sight record (in Oct 1992) in SW Zamora-Chinchipe, in far S of the country, by a highly experienced observer.