MY SECRET LOVE

It's time to get it off my chest.  Since 1965 I've had a secret love.
Experts call my secret love Scolopax minor.   Most of us know it as the American woodcock--sometimes called "Timber-doodle".  The  bird seems to be fashioned from spare parts.  He has short legs, strong, short wings and a long beak.  His ears are in front of his eyes -- which are near the top and back of its head--and the woodcock's brain is installed "upside down".   Honest! The coloration of the woodcock is best described as "forest duff".  They are almost impossible to see when crouched on the woodland floor.  The original Latin name, Philohela minor meant "little sun lover", but woodcock travel by night and lay low in shaded boggy places during the day--so I guess you could say the scientists missed the mark on that one!  I'm not sure when it was changed to Scolopax minor, which is now the "popular" name.

Mama and chicks (typically 4)

My secret love for the little bird started when I was living in Northern New Hampshire.  A friend of mine who was a game warden took me to a "singing ground" to observe a male woodcock give a "performance" at dusk.  It was truly a spectacle to see in the fading light.  The little bird would take off  and zip several yards in a straight line. It suddenly  spiraled upwards in the air until it was nearly out of sight.  At the apex of the bird's ascension it would "stall" and tumble to the earth like a falling leaf while making little "pit" sounds.  At the end of its fall, he would land as gracefully as if he had jumped off a short stool! Somewhere nearby his girlfriend was impressed.

Fast forward fifty years.  More knowledge of woodcock has become my obsession.  Besides the fact that they tend to hold fairly well for a pointing dog, they are a mysterious bird.  Most people don't even know the bird exists.  Pity.  It is as abstruse as any creature in the woods.  Come spring, the small quail sized woodcock returns to the northern bogs and places from whence it was hatched. It performs its spring mating rituals, raises a clutch of about four chicks --with extraordinary success I might add-- and avoids predators and hunters with its erratic flight through the alders, saplings and undergrowth,  At some point before the ground freezes and its main source of sustenance --earthworms-- becomes unavailable, it begins a journey to the Gulf states--most go to  Louisiana. The next spring, something throws its "migration switch" and the woodcock journeys back north to live the cycle again.

A proud display

As I said, most people don't even know that the woodcock exists!  Great interest is shown in pheasants, quail, ruffed grouse, and waterfowl, but "Woodcock?  What's that?"    Fortunately, hunters and conservationists who look to the future have organized themselves and created organizations like Woodcock Limited, Woodcock Unlimited and The American Woodcock Society.  They are starting to pay better attention to the plight of this little bird.

According to scientists and their statistics, hunters don't seem to influence the overall survival rates of woodcock at all, but development and the destruction of habitat cause the woodcock to decrease at a rate of about 1% per year. I'm glad that the little "mud-buggers" finally have people on their side.

The temperature is dropping to below zero tonight.  I can't help but think about the "reverse migration" and the spring arrival of the little game bird.

Walking north--Should have paid attention in "flight school"