A jack snipe plays hide and seek in the Somerset reedbeds

Some birds perform right in front of you, as if they are auditioning for the X-Factor. Others give themselves up grudgingly, momentarily, and all too fleetingly. The jack snipe is just such a bird: an avian Greta Garbo, legendarily elusive. The epithet "jack", incidentally, means "small"; another name for the species is "half snipe".

In half a century of birding, I can count the number of prolonged views of this little known species on the fingers of one hand. That's because, although the jack snipe is not exactly uncommon, it stays hidden, hugging the damp earth, until you virtually tread on it. Only then will it fly - and usually not very far.