American Woodcock

King Rd, Burlington ON. March 23^rd.2021. The thing about American Woodcocks is that although they’re fairly common, you rarely ever see them. They have just returned from warmer parts and started pair-bonding and staking out their territory, but they’re secretive. Fluky sightings offer some of the best views and they do happen: in mid-April 2018, a very late, ground-freezing, cold snap forced woodcocks out of their habitual deep-cover habitat to find soft ground and we happened upon one at the soft edge of a little spring. An accidental woodcock.

But to go looking for woodcocks takes effort, good eyesight in fading light and hearing much better than mine.  If and when you do finally see one, visual connection is usually very short-lived. Why bother at all, you might reasonably ask.,

Well, American Woodcocks are a common enough breeder around here (if largely invisible), I know that, and wanted evidence for my atlas work, so we made a sunset-hour outing to find them. You have to look and listen for them where forest edges give way to clearings, that’s where they come out to court.

As it gets dark, males make little, rhythmic nasal grunts. Apparently, the females are impressed so, to reinforce their point, the males take bold flight in a sweeping, climbing spiral, way up high, perhaps 100 metres, pause, and then descend singing a sibilant twittering before returning to their starting point. So, what we listen for are the grunts, (‘peents’ is how they’re usually described) and then watch for what looks like a running shoe catapulted overhead on whirring wings.

Like many things that happen in the fading light of day, finding American Woodcocks has its special attraction. We saw four or five last night, more than enough to make them My Birds of the Day.