by Greg Hoch
Springtime
“I know the woodcock as a harbinger of spring, more cheering to me than the most mellifluous thrush.” Charles Fergus, “A Hunter’s Book of Days”
Spring is the season for vibrantly colored warblers, orioles, buntings, meadowlarks and grosbeaks to pour into woods, fields and backyards, singing their hearts out from branch and fencepost. Mallards, green-winged teal and wood ducks dot wetlands. For someone with a casual interest in the natural world, it’s hard to miss these signs of spring.
In contrast, woodcock are dappled brown birds that spend much of their lives well-camouflaged in dappled brown leaf litter. The woodcock literature is full of words like mystery, hidden, cryptic, shy, secretive and reclusive. Their displays, when they’re trying to be seen, consist of a small, fast-moving ebony silhouette against shadowed tree limbs and a dark cobalt sky, backlit by the stars. Even Aldo Leopold wrote “I owned my farm for two years before learning that the sky dance is to be seen over my woods every evening in April and May.”
What
“With a musical whistle of wings, he angles across the field. Then he begins to spiral up into the pale evening sky. He rises higher and higher until he disappears from sight, although I can still hear his distant, muted twitter. A moment later he reappears, zigzagging and parachuting back to earth like an autumn leaf on a soft breeze. As he descends, he utters a different tone, a liquid kissing note.” William Tappley, “Upland Autumn”
The sky dance is a display male woodcock perform in the spring. The sky dance starts at dusk on the ground with what can best be described as a harsh, nasal peent! If you wonder why peent! is often italicized and followed by an exclamation point, then you haven’t watched or heard a sky dance. After you’ve heard it once, you’ll understand.
After a few peents! he launches himself skyward in wide climbing spirals until he disappears in the twilight. He then falls back to earth on a zig-zag path, often landing within inches of where he started. A few more peent!s and he’s off again. This can go on for an hour or two – or all night long when there’s a full moon and cloudless skies. It’s often easier to follow the sound than the sight of the birds. The primary sound as the birds climb into the sky is a twitter. Coming back to earth, it’s more of a warbling sound.
Aldo Leopold has the best description of the song on the bird’s descent when he wrote that it was a “soft liquid warble that a March bluebird might envy.” The peent! and the warble are vocal sounds like the song of most familiar birds. The twitter on the way skyward is something else completely.
The outer three primary feathers of the wing are much narrower than the rest of the primaries. The male spreads these three feathers so the wind passes between them and causes each one to vibrate. These vibrations are the twittering sound or what William Tappley calls a “musical whistle of wings” and Charles Askins describes as “wings humming like taut wires.”
All of these sights and sounds happen at the limits of perception for many of us. The warbles and twitters are just on the edge of the range of many people’s hearing, especially older ears or ears that have been exposed to shotguns over the decades. Following a small bird spiraling and zig-zagging at dusk can challenge even the best eyes. Several writers describe them as ghostly and William Tappley calls them “wraithlike.”
Because the bird is moving so fast and changing direction so often, Frank Woolner describes the sky dance as “ventriloquial sound, difficult to locate, coming from everywhere and nowhere.” Younger eyes and ears may be able to track the sky dance better, which is another good reason to bring a kid or grandkid along on your excursions.
Everyone seems to describe the sky dance a little differently. Charles Askins writes that the males are “towering in widening circles until lost in the gloom.” Robert F. Jones writes that the woodcock flew “upward into the empyrean” and Tom Huggler states that he “lost the bird in heaven’s vault.” Nick Sisley writes that “Finally, he disappeared from view, but his wing song continued.” Perhaps “wing song” more beautifully summarizes the sky dance better than any other turn of phrase.
Everyone experiences the sky dance differently. That’s why it’s fun to watch the dance with family and friends. It’s enjoyable to compare notes once darkness has fully settled in and you’re back at home.
The three outer primary feathers of the woodcock’s wings are much narrower than most birds. During the sky dance, the males hold these feathers apart. The wind between the feathers causes them to vibrate, producing the characteristic twittering sound.
Why
“No other bird in North America can match the woodcock’s aerial ballet. Few equal his earnest efforts to attract a willing female.” Tom Huggler, “A Fall of Woodcock”
As much as these displays capture the imagination and inspire the poet in many of us, we aren’t the audience. There doesn’t appear to be much survival value to the sky dance. It surely burns a lot of calories that could be put to better uses. The males may be attracting owls or other predators, which definitely doesn’t benefit them.
The sky dance is for the females. While we sit and watch the males and their antics, we can imagine females hidden away under some nearby bush watching attentively. The male is trying to demonstrate that he has better genes than other males and females should pick him – and his good genes – to breed with.
What we don’t know is what the female is looking for in a mate. Does she choose one male over another based on the height of his sky dance, the number or size of the spirals, the length of each dance or how many dances he performs over the night or, even, the loudness of his peent! And the musical qualities of his songs? Is it some combination of all of the above? Or is it something else that we mere humans are oblivious to?
Where
“. . . his habitat may be within a short distance of a house, and the owners of the said house may know naught of it.” Edwin Sandys, “Woodcock Shooting in Canada”
Where do you go to see the sky dance? If you live in forested area in the Great Lakes or New England regions, the answer is probably not too far away. The pup and I often have three or four woodcock on our own property, including one and sometimes two in the backyard. During a short walk down the gravel road at dusk we can hear six or seven – sometimes more. Our nearby public wildlife lands and rural parks also hold numerous woodcock.
Woodcock need bare, open areas on the ground for their display. A sandy or mossy area with no vegetation works well as does mowed areas, logging roads or hayfields.
Anywhere you can find brushy areas or young aspen near an open area, you have a good chance at seeing woodcock. Once you find the spot, the instructions are easy. Aldo Leopold says to just “… seat yourself under a bush to the east of the dance floor and wait, watch against the sunset for the woodcock’s arrival.”
Gateway
“Also there’s one awesome aspect of the woodcock’s life that, if exploited, could bring in a lot of nonhunters into the bird’s camp—the sky dance…I’ve known brush-scarred veterans of countless forays in the fall thickets whose greater thrill is in the spring when the sun is just a garish memory and they’re standing in the twilight to watch a woodcock spiral up through the steel-cold air in an ancient ritual.” Paul Carson, “Come October, Exclusively Woodcock”
It’s sometimes a little too much to ask someone unfamiliar hunting to just grab a gun and head for the woods. Instead, start by asking them to go watch the sky dance with you in the spring. Take them foraging for morels or wild plums during the summer. Invite them over for a meal of last year’s woodcock and the day’s foraging and gathering efforts.
If they are excited – and it’s hard not to be – ask them if they’d like to tag along with you and the dog this fall. If they enjoy that, ask if they would be interested in taking a hunter safety course, visiting the local trap range with you a couple times and joining you on a future hunt. Before you know it, one spring evening could turn into a decade of companionship on fall afternoons.
Anticipation
“Just like that, I became a two-season connoisseur.” Tom Carney, “Sun-Drenched Days, Two-Blanket Nights”
Unlike a morning in the duck blind where the horizon continues to brighten, tonight the darkness gets deeper by the minute. For some reason, the word gloaming seems much more appropriate than twilight or dusk.
We’re sitting in the backyard. A chill descends as the darkness grows thicker. I put an arm around the pup, both for companionship and for any of his warmth that might work its way through my multiple layers. We think we heard something off in the distance during our last couple of evening walks. According to our records from recent years, they should be here any day. We sit as still as we can and we wait. The stresses of the day drain down. The tensions of the moment build up. It’s an unusual state of relaxation and anticipation. It’s a meditation. Waiting … waiting … Peent!
