A Visitor From Lapland

No not Santa Claus or his Reindeer but much more illusive, a Jack Snipe, covered in jewels – well droplets of water actually!
It is a rare event to encounter a Jack Snipe before it flies off and in the last fifty years I have achieved this feat only five times, the last time being ten days ago. The plumage of the Jack Snipe is designed so that the stripes down its back and across its head blend in with the boggy vegetation where it feeds. In this weeks gallery I have included two distant shots of the Jack Snipe to illustrate the effect of the stripes in relation to their surroundings bearing in mind that this latest Jack Snipe was the easiest to see of the five that I have found!! click here