American Woodcock

LaFarge Trail, Flamborough. ON. June 3, 2024.  I stumbled upon an American Woodcock today, a bird we rarely see by design. When I say stumbled upon, it’s almost literally true.  I didn’t see it until if flew up from underfoot where it had been on its nest. Woodcocks are common in woodsy and brushy areas but are so cryptically patterned and so crepuscular in their habits that you just don’t see them, unless like me you step on one.  I was off trail a little wishing to check up on a site where, in the past, I’d found a patch of dainty Oak Ferns. The woodcock burst away, I paused, stepped carefully, and after a moment’s looking found its nest with three eggs. Such a serendipitous find couldn’t fail to be my Bird of the Day.  Here’s the nest.

And the bird below was found by us several years ago when a late and hard April frost had forced woodcocks to seek the soft ground around groundwater seeps and ponds where they were more likely to find food.  This one was trying hard not to be seen beside a well-travelled woodland trail.  It didn’t move a muscle despite our approach, its leaf-litter like plumage almost guaranteed its invisibility.

The woodcock came after an earlier hike around the valley looking and listening for the beauty of nesting season.  For a while I watched a Great Blue Heron hoping to ambush a fish or frog in a fast-flowing creek, eventually it plunged to strike but evidently missed.  It could have been Bird of the Day for its stoicism.

But then also there was a pair of Trumpeter Swans who we watched with some concern.  They were both away from the nest when we felt they shouldn’t be.  By our estimate, their five eggs are due to hatch at any moment, and what were the parents doing loafing around leaving the nest unguarded. Well of course we needn’t have worried our little heads, the swans knew exactly when and why they were entitled to a five-minute break.  The female soon returned to the nest, did a bit of housekeeping and settled in to continue incubation, Here she is.

Without details of other stops today here are just a few of today’s rewards: Wood Duck, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Yellow Warbler, Warbling Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Bobolink, Eastern Meadowlark, Nashville Warbler, Green Heron, Common Gallinule , Savannah Sparrow and Marsh Wren.  I’ll conclude by noting that early June is brilliantly colourful and so full of bird song that it really doesn’t get any better.