Bog Myrtle & Peat

My wife would never forgive me if I didn’t quickly post this photograph she took from the car window coming down into Aberdeenshire from Glenshee. I will never know how she spotted a pair of snipe lurking on the roadside verge as I drove past at 50mph, but she insisted that we reverse the car so that she could have a closer look. Impossibly, they stayed put as I clashed the gears into reverse, and while the bird on the right tipped forward slightly as we got closer, they lay as still as statues.

After thirty seconds, they both took off and the cock brought them both in to land again seventy yards away with his wings held up over his back like a paper dart.