The Great Snipe is a medium-sized wader that breeds from northern Europe east into Russia and winters in tropical Africa.
It is a medium-sized wader and uses open grassland and wetlands on its breeding grounds.
Researchers tracked display sites where males gather to court across 21 years in two populations in Sweden and Belarus. Marked birds found again in later years helped estimate survival at the sites and whether they returned to the same site. Both sexes were studied across the populations.
Average annual apparent survival was about 57%. Males had an 82% chance of returning to the same display site, and about 18% switched sites; switching was less likely at larger leks. Estimated apparent survival stayed stable over 21 years, although it combines mortality with birds that permanently left the study sites. Female survival estimates tended to be higher, but the difference was imprecise.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Long-term records can identify display sites used across years and guide protection of surrounding breeding habitat.