Greater Painted-snipe

The greater painted-snipe is a medium-sized wader, 23–28cm long, in which the usual roles of the sexes are reversed: the female is larger, heavier and more boldly coloured than the male. She has a black head with a buff crown stripe and a white patch around the eye, a dark rufous neck and dark bronze-green upperparts finely barred black, with a white stripe curving round the shoulder and a white underbody. The male is much paler and more mottled. It is mostly silent outside the breeding season, when the female may give a mellow hooting (Wikipedia, general species account).

It lives in swamps and on the edges of lakes and rivers, preferring muddy places with vegetation cover close to reedbeds, and although widespread across Africa and southern Asia it is uncommon. The female is normally polyandrous, and the male incubates the eggs and raises the young. The Australian painted-snipe was formerly included in this species (Wikipedia, general species account).