A bit about woodcocks
 

I've been reading Aldo Leopold's " A Sand County Almanac" (published 1948) about his farm in Wisconsin and came across this interesting description of woodcock behavior (p. 30):

“I owned my farm for two years before learning that the sky dance is to be seen over my woods every evening in April and. May. Since we discovered it, my family and I have been reluctant to miss even a single performance.

The show begins on the first warm evening in April at exactly 6:50 p.m. The curtain goes up one minute later each day until 1 June, when the time is 7:50. This sliding scale is dictated by vanity, the dancer demanding a romantic light intensity of exactly 0.05 foot-candles. Do not be late, and sit quietly, lest he fly away in a huff. The stage props, like the opening hour, reflect the temperamental demands of the performer. The stage must be an open amphitheater in woods or brush, and in its center there must be a mossy spot, a streak of sterile sand, a bare out-crop of rock, or a bare roadway. Why the male woodcock should be such a stickler for a bare dance floor puzzled me at first, but I now think it is a matter of legs. The wood-cock's legs are short, and his struttings cannot be executed to advantage in dense grass or weeds, nor could his lady see them there. I have more woodcocks than most farmers because I have more mossy sand, too poor to support grass.

Knowing the place and the hour, you seat yourself under a bush to the east of the dance floor and wait, watching against the sunset for the woodcock's arrival. He flies in low from some neighboring thicket, alights on the bare moss, and at once begins the overture: a series of queer throaty peents spaced about two seconds apart, and sounding much like the summer call of the nighthawk.

Suddenly the peenting ceases and the bird flutters skyward in a series of wide spirals, emitting a musical twitter. Up and up he goes, the spirals steeper and smaller, the twittering louder and louder, until the performer is only a speck in the sky. Then, without warning, he tumbles like a crippled plane, giving voice in a soft liquid warble that a March bluebird might envy. At a few feet from the ground he levels off and returns to his peenting ground, usually to the exact spot where the performance began, and there resumes his peenting.

It is soon too dark to see the bird on the ground, but you can see his flights against the sky for an hour, which is the usual duration of the show. On moonlight nights, however, it may continue, at intervals, as long as the moon continues to shine.

At daybreak the whole show is repeated. In early April the final curtain falls at 5:15 a.m.; the time advances two minutes a day until June, when the performance closes for the year at 3:15. Why the disparity in sliding scale? Alas, I ,41101.1 fear that even romance tires,for it takes only a fifth as much sunlight to stop the sky dance at dawn as suffices to start it at sunset.”

Enjoy!

Brian

I've watched that dance at our cabin
Spectacular

We get to see the sky dance in our yard each Spring (Yes, migrating woodcock travel through North Missouri is good numbers). Back when I was more nimble I'd put on camouflage and each time the 'cock went up, I'd crawl closer to the dance spot. On several occasions I was able to see the strutting male about a yard away. It's a special, special thing. Leopold's prose is more like poetry, and I've never read a better description of the sky dance than in his Sand County Almanac. Thanks for posting this and reminding us of this special bird...and the father of modern conservation.

I have done a really masterful job of stringing misses together on Billed Bats not so far from your cabin. I can assure you none were harmed. So shameful was my performance that this year I moved my bruised ego across the bridge, and ran the lake road west passed the Iron to start anew.
I love the little corkscrewing devils. In the Spring the thickets along the banks of Lake Erie are where I have caught the evening show.

I've had experiences with woodcock and their mating displays since I was a kid.

The following is excerpted from a story I wrote more than a decade ago.
I titled it "A Little Essay About A Funny Little Bird" and it may have appeared in Parker Pages...

"I remembered the woodcock singing ground of my youth right there in our back yard and I, not even aware of what it was that I was seeing and hearing, paid little attention. I remembered also the times that we went camping with our two young daughters, Jen and Melissa on Memorial Day weekends at Hermit Island on the Maine coast and the dozens of woodcock we would count of a dusky evening’s walk through their singing grounds. So, determined to find such a place nearby, I walked to a few likely glades and was finally rewarded by a faint and plaintive “peent” from the damp, lower corner of a field bordered by a maple swamp. Beyond the railroad tracks and about eighty yards across the field I discovered the little singing ground the cock had found to his liking.
But, it had grown late after all the time I had spent searching for such a place and now I could barely make out the maples silhouetted against the dim and fading light of the western sky. “Peent” came the call again and as I turned to walk home I knew I would be back tomorrow to witness his love dance.
The next evening as I was preparing to walk to the singing ground that I had found, Kathy suggested I take Tobie, our twelve-year-old chocolate Lab, for the exercise. No problem, Tobie would enjoy the walk and I thought she might find the woodcock interesting.
We walked the half-mile to where we crossed the tracks, cautiously crept across the field and sat down about twenty yards from where I thought the woodcock had been the night before. We didn’t have to wait very long. After only about ten minutes we heard the unmistakable “peent” over the din of the spring peepers from further back in the wetter part of the maple swamp. “Peent” again and then “peent” again. It sounded like he was coming closer to the corner of the field from his secure daytime haunt in the maple swamp. Then, for the next several minutes I didn’t hear him until, now, being aware of the sweetest twittering melody of some distant songbird, I understood what had happened. I had missed his departing flight from the singing ground, but here now he returns swooping down and across the field to the exact spot from where I had heard his last “peent”.
In just a couple of minutes he began his peenting again and after seven peents each separated by about ten seconds there was a silence of about twenty seconds after which he silently burst from his singing ground and flew low out over the field at a very moderate upward trajectory until he reached the tall saplings bordering the railroad tracks. At this point he lifted skyward and began the upward spiral of his mating flight. In the poor light I lost sight of him when he had attained some three-hundred feet of elevation but in less than a minute I heard the far-off twittering melody again and presently saw him fluttering and swooping downward, ever singing his beautiful love-solo to his chosen mate waiting somewhere near the singing ground. Now, swooping quickly down across the field he again landed exactly at the same spot as before.
In a minute a “peent” came from his location and after a total of seven peents he again flew to towering heights above the railroad tracks some seventy yards distant. Fortunately I was looking west from my position and the evening sky was paling to the pastel peach-skin hues that so beautifully silhouette the near-by trees and when the woodcock had reached the apex of his ascension he again began the trill of his love song. Fluttering and swooping down he passed between myself and the maples and pines at the edge of the field and I lost sight of him before he made his landing. It was growing dark and Tobie and I left as the little lovesick gnome again broke into his repetitive “peent”.
The next evening was wet and cold and I didn’t go to the singing ground but Tobie and I ventured forth again on the following warm evening. We arrived earlier than we had before and the peepers hadn’t even begun their chorus so I knew we were in for a good wait. We walked softly across the field to the spot where we had sat on previous evenings and I just laid back on the matted, dead grass where new, thin blades of green grass protruded toward the light of the sky. Tobie lay down beside me and rested her old head on my shoulder as I gazed into the display of a golden sunset.
Soon, I was aware of the distant sound of an approaching freight train. I was a bit disturbed at the thought of the noise of the train breaking the serenity of this pretty place but was glad the train was coming by earlier than later. As the train drew nearer Tobie became anxious and huddled closer to me and began to quiver while glancing up every so often to the approaching train. Soon the train was opposite our position and suddenly it stopped right there directly across the field from where we lay. I still hadn’t lifted my head and simply stayed still there hoping it would soon depart. Tobie had become very nervous at this point at the deep sound of the idling diesels so close-by but I just continued to lie very still for several minutes hoping I would calm Tobie by doing so.
Suddenly, before I could react, Tobie was on her feet, hackles raised, barking threateningly.
“Hey Mister! Are you alright there?” came a loud voice very close by.
I raised myself up onto one elbow and turning to look in his direction, replied “Sure, I’m okay. Just layin’ here with my dog. Yes, I’m fine, but thanks.” By now he had turned and was walking away but then he stopped, and turning back to take another look at us said “We’ve seen just about everything out here on the railroad.” And he turned and walked back to the train engine, for he was the engineer. I sat there in the field and watched as he climbed up into the cab, throttled up the engines and drove the train slowly away and away down the track toward the ‘Vale’.
I have often thought that I should have come clean and explained to him what we were doing in that field so late in the day way off away from everything else. I have often wondered if he would have understood the eccentricities of a white-haired and bearded old woodcock hunter/lover and his fervent desire to witness their secret mating rituals. And I remember the duck-hunter’s ‘camo’ hat and jacket he wore and I imagine he would have liked to hear of my find here in the evening meadow by the maple swamp. But I let him go, thinking I was just a crazy old man laying there oddly in a field with an old dog. I guess I just didn’t want to take the chance that he might not understand."






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Dean...thanks for being you....and so thoughtfully participating daily on this great forum.... really enjoy your posts and so many others from so many interesting guys... please carry on

Dean,

I'm smiling as I type this...thanks for sharing it again. It's funny how the game we pursue brings out the best in us. Too bad non-hunters can't understand.