April 26, 2009 - American Woodcock
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Shawn Conrad took Diana and me to a spot near Bovey, Minnesota to see the nighttime display of American Woodcocks. The Woodcock is a small (11”) game bird with a long flexible bill. It probes with its bill in the mud to find earthworms. A Woodcock can eat more than its own weight in earthworms each day. Right at dusk, the male starts giving his nasal-sounding “peent” call. He then performs a courtship display that begins on the ground. He flies straight up, high into the sky, and then plunges back toward the ground. He pulls up right before hitting the ground and lands softly near the spot where he started. His three outer primary feathers are narrower than the rest of his wing feathers. As he descends, the air produces a whistle as it passes over these feathers.
The eyes of a Woodcock are set high and far back on their head. This has a couple of advantages for them. It protects the eyes from vegetation and spattering mud when the bird is feeding. It also allows them to see predators approaching from above. In fact, Woodcock have better binocular sight to the rear than they do to the front.
Woodcock are found in moist areas: woodlands, mixed forest, thickets along streams, wet meadows, and abandoned fields. We found them in a clearing near a large brush pile. I was impressed by the tidiness of the range map for the Woodcock. It looks like someone drew a vertical line through the exact center of the United States and the Woodcock occurs everywhere east of that line and no where else, although it does occur along the eastern U.S./Canadian border.
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