The common snipe is a meduim-sized wading bird with a long, straight, pointed, black bill. It has a brown body with black bars, a striped head and back and a white belly. The common snipe is a small, stocky wader native to the Old World.  Common snipe can be found in wet grassy areas of freshwater marshes, ponds, flooded meadows, fields and occasionally, salt marshes. The breeding habitat is marshes, bogs, tundra and wet meadows throughout northern Europe and northern Asia. It is migratory, with European birds wintering in southern and western Europe and Africa (south to the Equator), and Asian migrants moving to tropical southern Asia. It is a well camouflaged bird, it is usually shy and conceals itself close to ground vegetation and flushes only when approached closely. When flushed, they utter a sharp note that sounds like scape, scape and fly off in a series of aerial zig-zags to confuse predators.[9] They forage in soft mud, probing or picking up food by sight. They mainly eat insects and earthworms, also some plant material. It is classified as least concern by IUCN.