The Woodcock's Dance

Yesterday, I found a woodcock roosting in the brushy edge of our sheep pasture. It's been years since I've seen one there. We used to hear them every spring as kids, but they lost their favorite field several years ago, and they've been slow to return. They are quite particular about where they choose to spend the summer, so I am very pleased we made the grade. They need brushy pastures for roosting, young forests for nesting, moist woodlands for feeding and fields for courtship.

In late spring, after the peepers wind down and well before the cicadas start serenading, I instinctively listen for the male's call. Birding experts quaintly refer to it as the “woodcock's peent,” but I think it sounds more like a monosyllabic nasally Russian 'nyet!'.

My parents instilled in us a great love for woodcocks and especially the male's funky, albeit very successful, courtship display. What greatness he clearly lacks in melodic beauty, he more than compensates for with the bravado and enthusiasm of his “sky dance.” Just before sunset, we'd all sit quietly (or as quietly as 5 kids can sit) and wait for the dance to begin, while my parents drank a glass of whatever it was that parents drank.

The woodcock starts the show on the ground, just as daylight begins to fade, with ten to twenty peents and then, as if shot out of a cannon, he rockets skyward in ever ascending spirals. A couple hundred feet in the air and almost out of sight, he pauses and then plummets groundward, as if mortally wounded, leveling out dramatically at the last minute, and landing safely, only to start it all over again.

Even when he's alone foraging for worms, it seems he dances to his own beat. Stepping one foot forward, and another step back, his rhythmic movements presumably make vibrations which cause the earthworms to instinctively move away, thus revealing their location. His long bill easily spears into the mud, extracting his prey. His foraging stutter step might be perfectly logical to adults, but to us kids it sure looked like he was line dancing to a Country Western tune. We imitated him endlessly and could always get my mom to laugh when we, wherever we happened to be, broke into an impromptu woodcock dance.

The male, having chosen our pasture as his territory, will attract several females to spend the summer with us. They will hopefully return each year to dance, breed, lay their eggs and raise their young.

Our regenerative farming style of pasturing in the woods, and having trees in our pastures, provides them with the habitat they need. I don't know what the sheep or chickens think but I for one am very happy to share the pasture with them, and I hope that they know they will always be welcomed.