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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Woodcock wonders

The art of the display and the art of camouflage reflect both sides of this unusual species

Marshall Helmberger
Posted 5/6/16

I once threw a boot at a male woodcock. I’m not proud of it, but it was an act of desperation. It was many years ago, and my wife Jodi and I were part of a tree planting crew somewhere near …

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Woodcock wonders

The art of the display and the art of camouflage reflect both sides of this unusual species

Posted

I once threw a boot at a male woodcock. I’m not proud of it, but it was an act of desperation. It was many years ago, and my wife Jodi and I were part of a tree planting crew somewhere near Bigfork. It was after dusk and we were in our tent trying to get some sleep before yet another day of planting.

That’s when it started. Peeeent! Peeent! Peeent!

The loud, nasally call, vaguely reminiscent of a joy buzzer, quickly told us we had pitched our tent in a very bad location. It was in the middle of the landing of a recent clearcut, which seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. But little did we realize that this male woodcock had decided it was the ideal location to make an impression on the ladies. As with many male birds, the male woodcock likes to strut his stuff, usually in small forest openings. In our area, rock outcrops are often favored, although a gravel pit, old field, or a clearcut will also do the job. Starting about dusk, the males show up at their preferred location, and begin their nightly ritual, which begins with a slow, erect dance of sorts, interspersed with their buzzy peents. After a dozen or so peents, they take to the air with a whir for the aerial portion of their display, which typically lasts a minute or so before they descend back to the exact same spot in a cascade of liquid-like notes. Then more peents, followed by another flight and the whole thing repeats, often for hours.

It’s impressive, to be sure, but not when you’re desperately trying to sleep.

I tried yelling at the bird, or swatting the tent wall in hopes of scaring it off. But in his amorous state, the bird wasn’t about to be distracted. Sometime, during what was probably the second hour of his display, I unzipped the front of the tent and hurled a boot out into the darkness at the source of what, by then, I had come to think of as an almost malevolent force. This time, the bird seemed to get the message. He flew off, leaving us in peace and quiet for the rest of the night.

In contrast to the male, the hen woodcock does her best to live her life unnoticed in the forest. Woodcock are classic examples of the effectiveness of camouflage, and a hen on her nest can be nearly undetectable on the mottled floor of the early spring woods. It’s their primary protection against predators and they will hold stock still at the nest until the last possible second, assuming that humans, dogs, or whatever else is out wandering the woods will pass by without noticing them.

That was nearly the case last weekend, when a friend’s dog all but stepped on a woodcock nest near our house, flushing the hen at the last moment. Even the four mottled eggs she left behind blended in nearly perfectly. The dog, fortunately, was so surprised, that it didn’t bother the eggs, and a short time later the hen had returned to the nest, no harm done, although she did get her picture taken for posterity.

Once hatched, the young woodcock won’t remain at the nest for more than a few hours. Like most fowl, woodcock are precocious at birth and they and their mother will leave the nest as soon as the chicks have all hatched. While the mother will help find food for the chicks for the first few days, they largely fend for themselves after that, chasing down insects and probing the soil for worms and other invertebrates. Woodcock use their long, surprisingly soft-tipped bills to probe the soft soil along the edges of wetlands. Alder thickets are favored locations, as anyone who has ever hunted woodcock in our area certainly knows.

Their short neck, long bill, and absurdly large eyes, positioned very near the top of their heads, give the woodcock a strange appearance. But those large eyes give the woodcock the ability to watch the skies for birds of prey even as their heads are down, with bills probing the soil for food.

While woodcock populations have been declining in parts of their range, particularly in the East, their population is stable or increasing here in Minnesota. Which, for the foreseeable future, means you should be careful where you pitch your tent this time of year.