Counting woodcocks at dusk
There is a rough field behind the old orchard where the mowing stopped years ago. Most of the year it is just tussocks, blackberry and a few young alders. For about six weeks in early spring, though, it hosts one of the strangest performances I know of.
The American woodcock is a plump, short-legged shorebird that has given up on the shore. It spends the day hidden in damp woods, probing for worms with a bill that is almost absurdly long. At dusk, the males walk out into open ground and begin calling: a flat, nasal peent that sounds more like an insect, or a toy, than a bird.
I went out three evenings this week, arriving about ten minutes after sunset each time and standing still by the gate. The routine was the same each night. Robins finished their last calls. A song sparrow tried one more phrase. Then, from somewhere near the middle of the field, the first peent.
The trick is not to look for the bird. You listen for the call, then watch the sky above where it came from.
After a dozen or so calls the male launches. He climbs in a wide spiral, wings twittering, until he is a small dark dot against the last light, maybe two hundred feet up. Then he comes down in a zigzag, chirping a liquid, bubbling song, and lands almost exactly where he started. The whole flight takes about a minute.
My counts, for what they are worth:
- Tuesday: two males calling, one display flight seen clearly, temperature 41°F, calm.
- Wednesday: two males, possibly a third at the far edge. Light drizzle; displays still went ahead.
- Friday: three males. Clear and cold, 36°F. The best evening by far.
Every year I worry that the field will be sold or mowed, and every year it is still there. The birds seem to need exactly this kind of neglected, in-between ground: too wet to build on cheaply, too scrubby to be anyone's lawn. It is a good argument for leaving a few corners untidy.
I walked home in the near-dark with the peents still going behind me, and a pair of spring peepers starting up in the ditch by the road. Winter is not over, but it has clearly started negotiating.