Scolopax minor

The American woodcock, or timberdoodle, engages in courtship in February. Old meadows near swampy thickets are likely stages for courting rituals. Males arrive shortly after sunset and call with nasal “peents” that sound like insects. Then they fly upward in a broad spiral, their wings whistling. Finally they return to the exact spot where they began and repeat the performance. The curtain closes at darkness, half an hour after it began. Another unusual tidbit: these long-billed members of the sandpiper family probe deep into soft mud and open just the tip of their four-inch bills to grab earthworms.

Cool Link:

Awesome Timberdoodle - an intern's take on a night of stalking and banding woodcocks with high school students. From the Chincoteague Natural History Association.

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