The Minnesota DNR says woodcock are 10 to 12 inches long, weighing 10 to 12 ounces, while snipe are slightly smaller, measuring 10 to 11 inches including the 2-inch beak and weighing 6 to 8 ounces.

Snipe, with their erratic, unpredictable flight when flushed and a top speed said to be 60 mph, are one of wingshooting's toughest targets. Only woodcock are anywhere close.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the total 2017 harvest was 42,400 snipe, compared to over 200,000 woodcock. Maine’s harvest varies from zero to less than 100 in any given year.

Three days later, woodcock season opens. With that Dec. 18 start, all major game bird hunting seasons in the state will be open - ducks, geese, quail, turkey, sandhill crane, doves, snipe, woodcock.

A snipe and a woodcock are about the same size, but the snipe is thinner, has an even longer bill and a drabber brown-and-white color pattern. Snipes perform an aerial mating ritual much like ...

LITTLE ROCK (AGFC) – If you read all the way to the bottom of news articles about setting of early migratory bird hunting seasons, you saw those names. Woodcock, snipe, rail, gallinule, moorhen.

MIDLAND — Join Chippewa Nature Center naturalist Tom Lenon tonight as he takes a hike in search of the woodcock and the snipe, two nocturnal birds not often spotted on treks through the woods.

With all but a handful of birds found in the wild being protected by federal and state laws, how do birds like rails, snipe, or woodcock get on the huntable list? Perhaps it is time to rethink ...