Looking for Timberdoodles
Finding American Woodcocks in the suburbs of Chicago!
Hey Folks, it’s Wayne again! I recently had the pleasure of leading a walk to find everyone’s favorite little dancing birds: American Woodcocks! I also wrote a blog article for the Chicago Ornithological Society afterwards. It was a stormy day, but did we have any luck on our search? Read on below to find out!
As the sun began to set, nineteen birders waited in their cars for the rain to pass. They were finally joining a sunset walk to find some American Woodcocks at Kent Fuller Air Station Prairie. After being rescheduled two times, tensions were high that this walk was cursed to never happen! Luckily the spring weather gave us some grace, and the rain stopped right before the walk began. Our destination was Air Station Prairie, a 32-acre remnant tall-grass prairie where visitors can view intact wetlands and find birds not easy to find in the Chicago area, such as the American Woodcock.
Before the walk began, some eagle-eyed birders had already spotted a Lesser Yellowlegs, Blue-winged Teal, and Northern Shovelers by the entrance to the nature center. We started the walk with a quick introduction about the infamous ‘sky-dance’ where male woodcocks give their distinct ‘peent’ call before fluttering high into the air. As these woodcocks flutter back down to the ground a whistle can be heard as the air passes over their wings. It’s quite the sight! The video from Massachusetts Audubon below gives a great example of the whistling wings display and the ‘peent’ calls they give after landing!
As we all walked single-file into the prairie birders got some great looks at flushed Wilson’s Snipes flying high into the air. We were all surprised and delighted when a Short-eared Owl flew out directly in front of us and soared in the sky. As we waited to hear the ‘peent’ call of the woodcock we saw an American Kestrel hovering and a Great Egret flying directly overhead. Unfortunately, our first loop through the prairie did not yield any woodcocks, but no one lost hope and we all agreed on another loop back into the prairie. It’s lucky we tried again, because about 25 minutes after sunset, we heard our first ‘peent’! It wasn’t long before we heard woodcocks calling all around the prairie.
Like a fireworks show for birders, these woodcocks put on a great show as they performed their sky dance. One even landed right in front of our group! For many birders on the walk, this was their first time seeing a woodcock and we couldn’t have asked for a better look at their iconic display performance. As the woodcocks soared around us, trip leader Wayne Ryan went over some of the many silly nicknames woodcocks have including ‘Bogsucker’, Labrador-Twister’, and ‘Timberdoodle’.
Returning to the nature center in the dark, we were all smiles after seeing the woodcocks. A total of 20 bird species were observed on this sunset walk.
P.S. Look forward to some more bird journeys coming your way soon including warbler’s raining down from the sky and another birder’s dictionary!
What a fascinating display by the American Woodcocks! And what a lovely word ‘timberdoodle’ is!