Last night a little after 8:00 pm I stepped out into the yard and heard the first singing woodcock of the spring. The really good part of this was the location of the bird. He was singing from the skidder road behind the garage in an area that was dense fir and spruce last year. This is the first actual indication that our management plan is working. As time goes forward it will be important to keep a number of singing locations open throughout the cut as it begins to grow back. I’ll run a couple of dogs around here at the house and see if we can’t get some woodcock pointed. There is still plenty of snow in the shaded areas of the woods especially if you get up a little higher than we are down here along the river. There was a report in the paper this morning of someone going off trail just north of here on his snow machine and getting stuck in snow that was chest deep. There’s still a lot of snow to melt. I haven’t heard a grouse drumming yet this spring.
