What a complete numpty I am !!

Close friends will know this already of course--but yesterday I excelled even for me!

Having decided to try for Jack snipe at our special site, I managed to recruit Kev to give me a hand. We loaded up the car for the half hour drive--but as we got out at the site I realised I'd left the crucial hand net back home.........doh!!. So back in the car to go home and bring the net--45 minutes wasted.

We then entered the site with Kev on the net while my job was to find the Jack snipe with my new thermal imager. I was getting really concerned when after about an hour I hadn't seen any form of wildlife despite the fact that common and Jack snipe were flying up around us. Quite by chance I looked at Kev through the imager and saw that his face was black, not glowing white as it should have been. Inadvertently I had changed the palette and was trying to see black shapes against a black background; no wonder I couldn't see anything.........doh again!!

I couldn't work out how to change it ( it's still very new and I haven't learned how to fly it yet) but fortunately I had asked Kev to bring our other imager in case my battery ran out. His wasn't working properly either but he was able to spot birds and we managed to catch 5 Jack snipe

Here are the heads of two Jack snipe showing two features:- first the short bill in comparison to common snipe ( see pic below); and secondly the bird on the left as you look at it has very pale almost white stripes on the head showing it's a juvenile, while the adult bird on the right has broader creamier head stripes. Unfortunately they aren't always that easy to age........

These are the same two birds--the upper one is the adult showing more golden hues in the back sripes than the paler juvenile. This also shows an important aspect in that Jack snipe tend to stay still when you approach and use camouflage to avoid detection. Imagine those colours sitting amongst dead grass stems--almost invisible.

This is a common snipe for comparison--somewhat bigger overall than Jack, but with a much longer bill