Woodcock Pictures - dataandoutdoors

A while ago, I made a blogpost entitled “An Odd Bird” where I wrote about the characteristics, habitat, and habits of the American Woodcock: https://dataandoutdoors.com/an-odd-bird/

In that post, I had a few pictures of woodcock habitat but no pictures of woodcock. As I described in the post, woodcock are well camouflaged and remain well hidden usually in dense forests. You normally only see them when they are flying away. However, I generally manage to spot a few a year and take a picture of one largely due to their greater inclination to hide. This inclination to hide is greater than that of their neighbor the Ruffed Grouse who is much more likely to fly and make for an even rarer photo opportunity (though I have gotten a few).

As it is now, in late April, female woodcock are getting broody (preparing to lay eggs and sit on their nest). This enabled me to get very close to a few hens.

This woodcock hen was six feet away in this relatively open young aspen stand. Yet she is still hard to see. My hand is in the frame for reference.

Next, I walked directly up to the hen and she refused to fly until I put my boot about a foot away from her. You can see her camouflaged markings in this picture and her pointy beak she uses to probe for worms and insects in the soil. She had no eggs.

A short time after seeing this hen, another flew up less than six feet away from me (about the same distance I spotted the first hen). This one was next to a tree and despite her being two steps away I didn’t see her until she flew. But she landed a short distance away (about 15 feet), probably again because she’s starting to nest. This is her in the picture. Even from a relatively short distance, she is impossible to see unless you know exactly where she is.

This hen flew up and landed a few feet away. Using scat evidence, I found exactly where she was sitting and there were no eggs…yet.

In addition to seeing these woodcock, I recently traveled to a Michigan GEM: Grouse Enhanced Management site. For someone who would like to see what stereotypical grouse and woodcock habitat looks like or even see or hear the birds along with their drumming and mating displays, this would be a good place to start. You can look up the locations of these GEMs online, so knowing where to go could not be easier. As I’ve detailed in my posts, these birds often hang around areas that don’t look like their stereotypical habitat. But like everything else in life, you start with the basics and learn from experience from there. When it comes to these birds, experience is synonymous with miles upon miles over years driving and walking the woods. But a mapping app isn’t a bad place to start.