Athol Daily News – Sportsman’s Corner: In praise of timberdoodles

The American woodcock, Latin name Scolopax minor, is a fascinating game bird that is related to sandpipers but has evolved to live in wet thickets, moist uplands, over-grown orchards, and regenerating poplar or popple, and alder stands. They are nocturnal feeders who roost in forest edge and then move to areas like pastures and abandoned farm fields where wet soils contain their primary food, earthworms. Their bill has adapted over time to be a long flexible tool to find and get the worms they depend on for food. Those earthworms are major prey at most times and places, but insects are also important, especially insect larvae that burrow in soil, such as those of many beetles, crane flies and others. Also eaten are millipedes, spiders, snails and other invertebrates and occasionally they will consume some plant material, including seeds of grasses, sedges, smartweeds. Yum!

The woodcock’s eyes are far back in the head so it can look for danger even when that long bill is probing for worms. Observers often note a rocking motion by woodcock feeding and some speculate that this might disturb worms and create movement and vibrations the birds can feel. Besides a small but devoted group of upland hunters, woodcock are favorites of many in the birding field as the spring mating “dance” of the males at dusk draws many out to watch. After sitting on the ground and emitting a call that sounds like “prynnt,” the males fly straight up almost out of sight before spiraling back down in an attempt to impress females. If you have never seen it, mark your calendar for April and get out to a place where wet areas abut openings or pastures.

After mating, females usually lay four blotched brown and gray eggs. Incubation is about three weeks and the hatchlings leave the nest a few hours after hatching. Young can make short flights at age 2 weeks, fly fairly well at 3 weeks, and are independent at about 5 weeks. Woodcock numbers have been declining in the Northeast and really took a severe drop in the 1980s, when a mid-May heavy snowfall wiped out that year’s class as woodcock do not re-nest. More significantly, “timberdoodles,” as they are often called, are finding less and less of the pasture, wetland and upland habitat they require as maturing forests and conflicting land use make it scarce.

A woodcock’s plumage is an overall mottled russet and brown. The breast and sides are beige. Black bars run from side to side across the forehead and crown. The short tail is brick red and black, tipped with pale gray spots. A woodcock’s color and markings help it blend in with the leaf litter and other debris covering the ground in its preferred young-forest habitat. This is near perfect camouflage.

For this writer, they are the perfect quarry, as they are known for holding tight for a pointing dog, and their twisting flight through the leafy understory they prefer makes hitting them a challenge that extends the hunting day. There is still, for my money, nothing like finding a “flight of woodcock” during the migration period. Birds are often clustered in fairly close proximity and nothing makes a young dog good, or a learning dog better, than the chance to handle multiple birds in a short time.

An interesting thing to note is that the dogs named “Cockers,” like the American Cocker Spaniel and the English Cocker Spaniel, get their names because they were bred to hunt woodcock. There is a European species, slightly larger than its American cousin, that is also a popular game bird in England and temperate and subarctic Eurasia.

The migration has always been a bit of a mystery, with every one having an opinion, but the miniaturization of electronics has made it possible to fit a transmitter to woodcock and use it to track migration. That data will, over time, make the picture of how this interesting little bird migrates each spring and fall a little clearer. To learn about how this study is evolving, search Eastern Woodcock Migration Research Cooperative on your computer. A fascinating picture is evolving. This column is being penned on Wednesday and Laney, Dinah and I found a couple of woodcock this morning. We will see if other covers hold migrants as the week continues.

My personal interest in woodcock is also fueled by the fact that many years ago, I was selected to be a wing collector in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s migratory bird survey. Each year, they provide me with envelopes to send one wing from each woodcock I personally harvest to the feds as part of the ongoing population research. The wings are used to determine the age and gender and that helps look at recruitment and overall population dynamics. All hunters who hunt woodcock, like all migratory birds, must annually report harvest numbers as well when they register for the required Harvest Information Program (HIP) number and all the data is used to help determine harvest limits and season lengths.

In my years of upland hunting, one of the things always noted is the start of the whitetail deer rutting activities. Since I regularly return to the same places, it is easy to note the appearance of new “rubs,” where bucks rake their antlers on saplings, and “ground scrapes,” where bucks paw the ground and urinate, leaving a “calling card” for does that come into heat. You have heard me refer to these as “pee mail.” The last week has revealed the activities of a couple of bucks that, judging by the size of the trees they attack, are bruisers. Too bad my schedule no longer includes bow hunting.

Wednesday morning’s hunt was meant to be a chance to exercise man and dogs but, after looking at the MassWildlife web site and finding a nearby pheasant stocking area, were able to bring home the main ingredient for my wife’s pheasant pie. Can’t wait!