On March 20th, I drove up to this large field to listen for singing woodcock. Just before 7:30 after the sun had set and it was close to full dark, first one male went peent, then another in a different location. After listening for a few minutes, I moved about a half mile down the road that runs along the edge of the field and heard two or three other birds. One was within a few yards of the truck just in the field. As March and early April progressed we got lots of good work on these returning woodcock. Once they started to nest we tried to stay away from them, but Frankie pointed one on a nest and we’ve been keeping track of her ever since. As of Sunday she was still there. We didn’t get a chance to check her again until this morning.
She’s gone and four eggshells remained. There were a number of amazing things about this experience. First was the site of the nest. As you can see from the second picture below the nest was right on the edge of the field with heavy cover behind it where I assume she has gone with her chicks. The scientific literature says that the chicks will be able to fly short distances in two weeks and will be almost fully grown in about a month. Even though the woodcock chicks will be flying a month from now, we won’t be back in the woods for a few more weeks after that to give the grouse time to hatch and also be flying when we loose the “hounds.”
The four eggshells were all within a couple of inches of the nest. I put them back in for the picture. |
The woodcock nest is just to the left of this small tree. Standing next to it you have an unobstructed view down to the field. A picture of her on the nest is in an earlier post. |
I brought the eggshells home to get this close-up. The literature states that woodcock are the only bird that split their eggs the long way. |