I’m not sure that Mike will appreciate this especially, but his mention of American Woodcock as his jinx bird in the birding meme we just posted reminded me that I still have a lot of galleries to transfer onto 10,000 Birds - and that one of them just happens to be a few photos of a very obliging American Woodcock that I found one morning in NY’s Central Park (oh, the irony that a travelling Brit should have such excellent views in the very heartland of all things 10,000 Birds… Perhaps it’s not all that surprising, thinking about it though: Mike will have many, many opportunities to score a Woodcock over the coming years, whereas I may never again have the chance - hence I thought it worth spending two hours searching for a beautiful but elusive shorebird crouched amongst a pile of dead leaves and fallen branches when other birders in the Park were looking for early migrant passerines…)

Anyway, that’s the background, here are the photos.

American Woodcock Scolopax minor
Central Park, New York, USA. March 2004

The superbly camouflaged American Woodcock is a ’shorebird’ that like many of its congeners lives in wooded areas, remaining on the forest floor where it probes for earthworms. As with many shorebirds the tip of the American Woodcock’s upper mandible is flexible and the bird probably feels worms as it probes in the ground. A Woodcock may rock its body back and forth without moving its head as it slowly walks around, stepping heavily with its front foot - an action that may make worms move around in the soil increasing their detectablity.

Woodcocks are often easiest to see during their elaborate courtship in the spring, when males give repeated “peents” on the ground then fly upward in a wide spiral. As the male gets higher his wings start to twitter. After reaching a height of 70-100 m (230-328 ft) the twittering becomes intermittent, and the bird starts chirping as he starts to descend, coming down in a series of zig-zags. As he comes nearer the ground he becomes silent, landing near a female if she is present.

This individual was photographed close to “The Rambles” area of Central Park early one morning.