Snipes search for invertebrates in the mud with a "sewing-machine" action of their long bills.

The sensitivity of the bill is caused by filaments belonging to the fifth pair of nerves, which run almost to the tip and open immediately under the soft cuticle in a series of cells; a similar adaptation is found in sandpipers; this adaptation gives this portion of the surface of the premaxillaries a honeycomb-like appearance: with these filaments the bird can sense its food in the mud without seeing it.

The bird is also highly alert and startled easily, rarely staying long in the open.

If the snipe flies, hunters have difficulty wing-shooting due to the bird's erratic flight pattern.

The difficulties involved around hunting snipes gave rise to the military term sniper, which originally meant an expert hunter highly skilled in marksmanship and camouflaging, but later evolved to mean a sharpshooter or a shooter who makes distant shots from concealment.