Gallinago nobilis P.L. Scater, 1856

Castro-Vargas, Fernando, Cruz-Mendivelso, Yerson, Ortega-Chamorro, Darwin & Palacino-Rodríguez, Fredy, 2020, Birds from northeastern Bogotá Savannah, Cundinamarca, Colombia, Check List 16 (5), pp. 1375-1391 : 1384

Gallinago nobilis P.L. Scater, 1856

Figure 5B, C

New records. Several adults and chicks have been seen flying and foraging in the flooded grasslands of the ESNR. We recorded this species in all samples of the systematic surveys since 13 April 2017.

Identification. Beak long, up to twice the length of the head. Body speckled with black, with darker neck and chest. Central region of the belly white.

Remarks. We saw courtship behavior at the beginning of May and until the end of June 2018. We found three active nests (27 May, 12 June, and 9 July 2018) in flooded grassland, each with two eggs (47.1 mm × 33.6 mm). This species is mainly threatened by habitat degradation (Birdlife International 2018), and the populations in and around Bogotá have undergone a slight reduction in abundance over the last two decades as a result of a reduction in the availability of shoreline in wetlands due to invasive macrophytes ( Stiles et al. 2017). The presence of this species in protected areas in Ecuador (Cisneros- Heredia 2006) and Chingaza Natural National Park, Colombia (Linares-Romero et al. 2017), and now in ESNR and PJDNR, where macrophyte invasion is under control, may help increase populations of this bird species.

Distribution. Southwestern Venezuela to southern Ecuador.