Movin' house

Well, it's happened. Aside from delivery of a new bed (Monday) and washing machine & freezer (today, I hope!), we're in and settled. Oh, and we need a dining table & chairs and a kettle, but that's incidental... We're on the edge of Dartmoor in a 2-bed cottage (you can stay over now, should you be passing through, Mark!) with our own garden...

The celebratory welcome-to-your-new-house dinner was provided by an unfortunate Snipe I found on the road - still warm, I hasten to add. (Some of the pics below contain a wee bit of real-life guts - you have been warned!)

Nice innocuous view of the back of the bird. Note the kitchen knives ready & waiting...

Spreading the wing to view the upperwing. Knives getting closer...

...and some detail of the upperwing. Gore up next...

Overall view of the underside of the prospective dinner.

Bit of underwing action: looks pretty dark, but not Wilson's Snipe - but imagine that bombing past you in dull winter light and you might be forgiven for thinking it had darker underwings than it actually does.

A closer view of the underwing. The barring is nearly, nearly, as nice as that on Green Sandpiper.

And a bit more detail of that underwing.

Some information about ageing Common Snipe can be found in Ringing & Migration (a pdf web link here: http://blx1.bto.org/pdf/ringmigration/23_4/kaczmarek-colour.pdf). It would appear that this could be a young bird, but equally it might also be an adult which has finished moulting! As it's the first Snipe I've seen in the hand, I would be cautious about putting an age to it...

Some more pics below - Na's sister Jo, her husband Arturo and the children on their first visit to our place. Top pic is me apparently putting in some practice for future fatherhood (*cough!* *splutter!*)