Identification: The easiest to identify of the three snipes that winter locally; several distinctive features can be used to reliably tell this species apart from both Pin-tailed and Swinhoe's. Structurally, Common is distinctly sleeker, smaller-headed, and longer-billed than both those species; in plumage, is obviously more "contrasty", especially evident on the facial feathers (loral line especially darker and more prominent in Common). Most easily distinguished in flight, where broad white trailing-edge to secondaries and uneven markings on underwing (unlike Pin-tailed and Swinhoe's, which have evenly-barred underwing patterns) separate this species.