JACK SNIPE Lymnocryptes minimus (Brünnich, 1764)

Accepted: 2 (50%)	Treated in Appendix H: no
Not accepted: 2	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 0	Color image: none

This small, secretive bird breeds from Scandinavia across northern Eurasia to eastern Siberia. The winter range is vast, stretching from the British Isles south to tropical Africa and east to southeastern China and Taiwan. In the Old World, vagrants have been recorded in Iceland, the Faeroe Islands, Madeira, the Azores, the Kuril Islands, and Japan. In addition to California’s records, this species has been documented a handful of times in the New World. Three are older specimen records: St. Paul Island, Alaska, spring 1919 (Hanna 1920); Makkovik Bay, Labrador, 24 December 1927 (Austin 1929); and Barbados 12 November 1960 (Bond 1962). More recently, the Washington Bird Records Committee accepted a 16 September 1993 sight record from northwestern Washington, but the Alaska Checklist Committee regards a 16 June 2004 sight report from St. Paul Island (NAB 58:584) as “probable, but not substantiated” (T. G. Tobish in litt.).

Both of California’s records—from Gray Lodge Wildlife Area, Butte County, 2 November 1938, and from Colusa NWR, Colusa County, 2 December 1990—involve females shot by hunters in the Sacramento Valley in late fall/early winter (McLean 1939, Patten et al. 1995).