Natural Highlights: American Woodcock
February is the month in which humans celebrate romance with gifts of flowers and candy, while American Woodcocks, our local love birds, indulge in singing fields and sky dancing!
American Woodcocks (Scolopax minor), which are in the same family as sandpipers and other shorebirds, reside in the Mid South year-round, leading mostly quiet lives in our moist young forests and shrubby fields, far from any ocean shoreline. With a flexible upper beak to better grasp their slippery prey, they specialize in eating earthworms, but consume many other invertebrates they find on the ground as well – snails, spiders, beetles, etc. Their eyes are placed high on their skulls to help protect them from aerial predators, and combined with their plump bodies and long beaks, give them a rather comical appearance which might have inspired such fanciful names as “timberdoodle” and “bogsucker.” Their lives are mostly solitary, until courtship season begins around the middle of January in this area.
Observing woodcocks in action requires a warm jacket and patience with standing and listening in the winter darkness. Male woodcocks wait until nightfall to begin calling to females in overgrown open fields and shrubby spaces called “singing fields.” They repeat a nasal “peent” sound before taking flight in a wide upward spiral often 200-300 feet high before plunging back to earth. While “sky dancing,” the males twitter continuously and the wind whistles through their primary flight feathers. Females remain on the ground, listening to the cacophony of many calling, twittering males, and making their selections once the males are earthbound again. A male will repeat the whole process many times – nasal calling, sky dancing, and attracting and mating with as many females as possible. While females eventually scrape a rudimentary depression in the ground and brood a clutch of 1-5 eggs unaided, the males will continue their courtship calls and flights over the singing grounds on into the summer nights, perhaps hoping for females available to raise a second brood.
A small group of observers recently gathered at dusk in the cold and damp at Rodney Baber Park to listen and look for woodcocks in the fields which have served as singing grounds for a number of American Woodcocks this February. The group waited as the sky grew darker and then fully dark. At last, the first emphatic “peent” call was heard, soon followed by another and another as the sky dancing and the twittering began. Those with better vision could just make out a few woodcocks on the ground or in flight in large circles overhead. Others simply listened as these unique birds displayed the same unique courtship ritual they have performed for thousands of years.
Woodcocks depend on overgrown fields and early successional, scrubby deciduous forest habitat, habitats that might be undervalued by many people. Supporting a diversity of species, including the unusual American Woodcock, requires supporting the plant communities and habitat types which these species need, all part of a well-rounded conservation strategy. Rodney Baber Park is included in the wooded Wolf River corridor through Memphis and can be reached via the N. McLean section of the Wolf River Greenway.
To learn more about the American Woodcock, we recommend these links:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Woodcock/overview
https://ebird.org/species/amewoo
https://www.audubon.org/news/10-fun-facts-about-american-woodcock
February is when American Woodcocks court with “peent” calls and sky dances, thriving in shrubby fields. Protecting their habitat is crucial for diversity.
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