Various species of snipes make a winnowing that can be mistaken for the hoot of a boreal owl to the untrained ear.

Q. I’ve been hearing a bird this spring, usually near dusk, that makes a kind of creepy, haunting sound. I thought it was a whippoorwill, but when I pointed out the sound last weekend by the campfire, ...

Apart from its long, elegant beak, the great snipe looks just like any other wading bird. But researchers have found that this ordinary-looking creature could well be the fastest bird on Earth – over ...