Eurasian Woodcock

My first and very memorable encouters with the Woodcock were in Norway in the seventies and nineties. During adventurous wild camping in silent big forests and extensive mountain areas.  In the evenings, when the tent was pitched and the camp fire burned, we sat down enjoying the dusk decending on us. Staring into the flames (our 'bush TV') and listing to that intense silence. And than, ...suddenly ....., he anounced his arrival. The Woodcock on his territorial evening flight. A monotonous pulsating call ('chick' chick'), and a dark silouette gliding overhead across the open space in the surrounding pitch black forest. A magical evening moment that repeated itself on many of the hiking days with almost guaranteed predictability.

My more recent Woodcock sightings were all closer to home. Most of them in the dune belt along the Dutch West coast. And once, quite surprisingly on the Southern pier of the IJmuiden harbour. These were all sightings during the fall migration and the winter period. These sightings usually are comparable and characteristic. The Woodcock presence not being noted until the instant last moment, when very nearby it explodes out of cover on the ground and speedily wings away, zigzagging between the trees.

Southern harbour head, IJmuiden

The first to feature in this Tail&Tale is the remarkable sighting of a Woodcock in IJmuiden on November 2, 2008. My first experience of capturing a woodcock on photo. I had just gone digital only months before, and IJmuiden seemed a good place to give my sparkling new Canon 1Ds-III and the 500 mm F4 on tripod a trial run. For sea and coastal birds, the IJmuiden harbour piers are always an excellent spot.

I was amazed and excited to spot a Woodcock sitting, or laying for a better word, on one of the concrete blocks at very close range.
I could  move even closer still (at last within a couple of metres), while the Woodcock remained motionless. It appeared to have found the saving pier, exhausted by its migration out at sea, over a kilometre from the coast line. The 500 mm clearly was an 'overkill' to take this 'sitting-duck' close-up (photo below),......by standing back.

In 2021, this Woodcock Tails & Tales captures two more fascinating sightings  (.......about life and about death).

'Snow snipes'

And all of a sudden, winter belatedly turned on us with a vengence. A 'code red' weather warning foreboding blizzard snowfall for an exceptional 24 hours duration. Bow waving a forecasted icy week (february 7-14), with night temperatures well below minus 10 degrees C.

On several walks in the 'Amsterdamse waterleidingduinen' in milder January, I  already saw unusually large numbers of common snipes,  flushing them out of ground cover. And yes, quite some woodcocks as well. The prognosis of a thick (>10 cm) snow deposit followed by the rapid freezing over of the open surface waters, further improved the prospects of sighting more snipes.

On one of my regular local birding walks, I saw a small group of teals dive landing into a recessed narrow creek. I was surprised to see these 'benjamins' of our endemic duck species homing in on such a miniscule patch of water. With also quite some surrounding trees forcing their steep and manouvred descent. To get them back in view, I needed to make a short walk around.

From a distance through binoculars, I see them peddle the narrow and shallow creek, running only a trickle of water. While I stand  watching, something else catches my eyes. There, on the steep creek bank in a small snow-free patch in the sun. That is a snipe, ....no even more than one ! At first looks I see just two woodcocks,  and then also two common snipes pop up in view too. Fouraging side by side on those couple of square metres. There, the soil apparently was still not frozen yet. Due to its recessed position and its South-facing into the low February sun. It was late in the afternoon so photography had to wait until the next day. Lured by a nice weather forecast, my intentions were immediately set with high expectations.

The following Tails & Tales capture a fascinating couple of hours of observations and photography, that next sunny and very memorable day. Spent in a hide, set up on the patch-facing opposite bank (photo below).

Good luck or bad luck ? What I beforehand had suspected might happen, ....did happen. Upon my return the next day, I spot snipes in the very same spot. But moving closer without risk of flushing them is no option. On the facing creek bank there is no reliable cover by any trees or bushes. So setting up that hide means loosing all present. To see them fly off and having to rely on their returning in the next few hours, feels like a dilemma. But I don't have a better card to play.

The hide with the photo gear are set up in just a few minutes. The back of the hide left open for some extra moving-in-the-hide space. And then, the looking, waiting and hoping starts. After I while check. ......More than an hour already and still no sign of any snipes returning. Patience pays, most of times. Since they were present upon arrival two days in a row, I reassure myself that they very likely can't resist coming back to this coveted 'hot spot'.

And then suddenly a woodcock falls in. Straight onto the inclined snow-free bank, on brown oak leaves and in between some scattered reed stems. Holding my breath, I slowly swing the 700 mm. In focus, ...beautiful! I instantly shoot a couple of frames, ....just in case.
And the woodcock,..starts fouraging. It is poking its long bill into the leaf bed while it very slowly moves across the bank face. The reed stems often posing a challenge for timing my optimum shots.

Specialist

I am watching with increasing respect the woodcock's fouraging movements, extracting 'goodies' from under the leaves. Poking pushing and shoving its long bill into the soil. Often over its full length (photo below). Most of the times, I can't make out what kind of edibles it fetches. Too small to see, and being downed to quickly after some swift 'bill nibbeling'. But once in a while the woodcock fetches some more substantial prey. There I see a fat earthworm dangle from the tip of its bill. Shooting a frame just in time (photo below).

I am getting baffled more and more by the sheer speed and effectiveness of its fetchings. Down goes his bill and mostly, within seconds, it's time to nibble and swallow again. That long 'simply-straight' bill obviously is a sublimely sensitive precision instrument. A orchan mastering touch, manipulation (and who knows perhaps even  also means of 'sensing'). Some metres to its side, a fouraging blackbird is searching for earthworms too. Its fanatic and persitent diggings look impressive, but he surely is no match for his 'neighbour woodcock'. Looking miserably ineffective with disappointingly little to show for all its hard work.

Camouflage

The plumage of the woodcock surely is an eyecatcher. A beautiful marbled 'mozaic' of earthy colours. A varied palette ranging from light beige and reddish brown to almost black. It equipes the woodcock with a splendid camouflage in its forest habitat. A woodcock on a forest floor covered by fallen brown leaves and dead wood can go unnoticed, even if you look for it and pass by it close range. Only when it explosively flushes from cover and swiftly wings away zigzagging between the trees, do you notice it was there.

As noted already above, this splendid camouflage looses all its colours&patterns perfection for a woodcock on a snow surface. Than all that camouflage splendour turns into dark brown contrasting sharply with its white and light surroundings.

The woodcock is fouraging almost exclusively on the snow-free part of the inclined bank. During my two hours of continuous observations, the woodcock only very briefly ventured onto snow on the bank shoulder. It instantly struck me that in such a snow-framed setting the woodcock is so much more vulnerable to predation by birds of prey.

Predation

Tell-tale traces of the presence of migrating Woodcocks quite often (and sadly) present themselves as loose feathers. These are Woodcocks for which their migration got cut short ....'dead in the track' so to speak. The plucked feathers of a Woodcock kill by a raptor are often readily identified as such by their pretty 'camouflage' pattern of red-brown, black, and beige colours. I found quite a few victims in the dunes of the Ameland barrier bar island off the North coast. And in the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen (AWD), I once flushed two buzzards off something on the ground. Curious, I checked it out and found a partly plucked fresh woodcock kill.

The photo below shows the beautiful pattern of the woodcock plumage. This one most probably is a kill by a bird of prey. Plucked and eaten are only the frontal parts (breast and intestins), and it is decapitated.

Tell-tale traces in the snow

Snow is not everybody's friend. Certainly not for a hungry Woodcock searching for food ....during the day .....in the AWD.

By snow on the ground, their otherwise stunning plumage camouflage is turned plain useless, appearing dark and conspicuous. Not all is too bad as long as they remain at rest on the ground in between branches, against a dark tree trunk, or on a bed of dark leaves, worked up from under the snow mostly by thrushes. But things get badly risky for the Woodcock when it treads out and about across the white snow. For a hunting raptor, such a Woodcock becomes a very visible and above all a much sought for and a 'hard-to-miss' prey.

The traces I found on 9 Februari 2021 in the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen are even more special and fascinating.

Walking down a path, a few small dark feathers on the snow catch my eye. And then, to the side there is a patch of three larger ones (photo below). These have unmistakingly the pattern and colours, .....of a Woodcock. And more surprisingly,......that small hollow in the snow with some small feathers and that typical light brown colouring in the bottom. A blood stain.

Here, an alert bird of prey (Northern goshawk, sparrowhawk, or buzzard) has seized a woodcock. And only then do I recognise the subtle contours in the snow, on two opposite sides of the hollow. Imprints of wings with that characteristic curvature and width. Showing even the contours of the individual feathers (primaries) of the left wing. And to complete it all,  that perfect imprint of its characteristic long bill. This unfortunate woodcock got slain by the bird of prey and pressed down with its breast into the snow, carving out the hollow. Apparently with both wings spread in a panicked reflex.

Apart from that single perfect and complete imprint, there is no other disturbance visible in the snow. No traces of any movements after the seizure. Traces one would expect to see if there had been any following struggle between raptor and prey. Nor was there any trace of plucking of the prey. I looked for the raptor's claw imprints in the snow around but there weren't any. It appears that the raptor has seized the woodcock and instantly flew off with it. Possibly it was seized even in a continuous scooping flight. In that case, the small blood spill in the hollow must have occurred also instantly upon the seizure. That points to a heavy blow by sharp deep-penetrating claws, ......a Northern Goshawk most probably.

It is so fascinating to find and 'read' these 'Wings & Tale' traces in the snow.