R. Michael DiLullo

Woodcock Memories

As late September days become shorter and cool evenings awaken to vibrant blue skies with sugar maples beginning to blush crimson and as the beeches turn to gold, my spirit seems to be revitalized once more. Maybe it is a calling somewhere deep in my primeval memory to prepare for the coming winter. Or maybe it is because I am acutely aware of the approaching hunting season, of the adventures which lie ahead and the beauty of nature that awaits outside the confines of my four walls. Autumn, after all, is a glorious season and a time of reflection.

It seems while most of God’s creations are preparing for the sleep of winter, the hunter in me is just awakening. In the field, there are certain subtle nuances, which are not immediately obvious or instantly recalled until they are once again revisited. The sights, sounds and smells of autumn may be abstruse to the passer-by, but the upland hunter will relate to the images that the canvas smell of a Filson vest or the jingle of a dog’s bell can instantly bring to mind. Fond memories of seasons passed, of shared experiences with hunting partners and the reverence for the wild creatures pursued.

Although I hunt a variety of upland birds and waterfowl, I have always been fascinated by woodcock. There is a uniqueness to this petite game bird. Even his names, depending on what region of the country you are from, share unusual monikers. He is most commonly called the timberdoodle, but is also referred to as the mud sucker, mud bat, and bog sucker. There is a curiosity about woodcock, which is shared by most who have spent any time in pursuit of the elusive little bird. Many upland hunters call it "the mystic of woodcock". It is probably because he is so different from any other game bird.

The woodcock - an American classic. Photo by: Author

He is a solitary bird that has an uncanny way of blending into his surroundings. Nature has blessed him with a combination of camouflage coloring and stealth. His brown and russet feathering perfectly matches the leaf littered floor on which he resides. He will hold much longer than his neighbor, the ruffed grouse, and I have seen woodcock wait until almost stepped upon by dog or hunter until flushing. I sometimes wonder how many woodcock I have walked by when hunting without a dog.

Nature may have blessed him with concealment, but she also played a trick on him when it came to looks. The northern indigenous American Indians believed that the woodcock was a compilation of leftover parts. And it is no wonder, for he has a somewhat comical appearance. He carries a long flexible bill that he uses to probe soft loamy soil in search of his main diet of earthworms. He has two large black eyes that are set far back in his head, enabling him to see behind better than ahead (helping him from becoming a meal for an owl or hawk). And his ears are positioned in front of his eyes so he can better hear his prey. His rotund body sports a pair of stubby wings and he sits on delicate slender legs. He is truly a strange looking little bird. They come in two sizes, with the male slightly smaller than his female counterpart, each weighing only little more than six to eight ounces, about the size of a bobwhite quail.

Some hunters consider the woodcock as a "bonus bird" while pursuing grouse. Others who have never seen him because they do not enter his haunts, often mistake him as a snipe or "shorebird". Because of this, he is also sometimes called a mud or wood snipe. To the uninitiated, the American woodcock is a woodland enigma.

The woodcock has been the cause of many accomplished wing shooters to miss on more than one occasion, and anyone who says they are easily shot has never really hunted woodcock before. His zigzagging butterfly-like flight seems to be almost out of control at times. When first viewed, he seems very slow in flight compared to most other game birds. But, with his erratic flight pattern and because of the habitat in which he resides, he is far from being an easy mark.

	"A bird in the hand", the Author displays an October timberdoodle taken near a beaver meadow in upstate New York. Photo by: Jim Caltabellatta

Since the 1960’s, the woodcock population has declined by more than fifty percent on the eastern portion of his range. The main cause for this decline is the loss of suitable habitat. The woodcock is a bird of young immature forests and woodlands. The maturation of northern forest and the lack of old stands of timber being harvested have caused his numbers to drop significantly. Knowledgeable woodcock hunters understand that Mr. Timberdoodle only habitats certain environments. One of the criteria for locating woodcock is finding an area suitable for his favorite food, the earthworm. There is an old adage amongst northern woodcock hunters that says, “No worms, no woodcock!” Good woodcock locations, known to New Englanders as “coverts,” are well kept secrets that amongst ardent upland hunters and are seldom shared with outsiders.

Woodcock coverts are generally areas of soft damp rich loam, soils that produce and hold earthworms. Stands of young saplings, whose shade and density shield against raptors, restrict the growth of grasses and other plants. Aspen, alder, birch and poplar stand along the banks of streams, beaver ponds and marshes. These are classic woodcock coverts. Small clear-cuts, overgrown meadows, old logging roads and openings with sparse understory, can also make for good woodcock cover. But, I have also flushed him from briar thickets near abandoned apple orchards and around old cemeteries in New England, hedgerows and tree lines in the Mid-Atlantic States, near abandoned homesteads and from the edges of hay fields in the south. If any one rule is true about the woodcock, it is that he is as inconsistent as he is predictable.

The one true consistency for woodcock hunting is that once the "gales of November" set-in, the wayward woodcock heads south. For woodcock are migratory birds, and once the ground of their northern limit begins to freeze they can no longer feed. Woodcock are normally only found east of the Mississippi River, along the Mississippi and Atlantic flyways. Atlantic flyway woodcock breed and nest in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada, specifically the Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Mississippi flyway timberdoodles spend their summers rearing young in northern Michigan and Wisconsin, southern Ontario and southwestern Quebec. Each autumn, Atlantic birds fly thousands of miles following the Appalachian Mountains south to their wintering grounds in the Carolina’s, Georgia and Florida. While the Mississippi birds winter as far south as Louisiana, woodcock migrations generally follow the frost line south in search of warmer weather and food. Besides locating prospective woodcock coverts, being there at the right time to intercept flight birds is the real trick. Woodcock usually fly at night, some believe during full-moon phases, and an empty covert today may be teaming with flight birds tomorrow. Woodcock migrations tend to be in waves and good coverts can be productive for several weeks each fall from October through November, depending on weather conditions.

The woodcock will hold tighter than his neighor, the ruffed gouse, making his good quary for both pointing and flushing dogs. Photo by: Author

I have hunted woodcock up and down the eastern seaboard, but my most memorable hunt experience took place several years ago in south central Virginia, on my family’s farm. My brother Paul and I had finished making some repairs to one of our duck blinds, in preparation for the upcoming waterfowl season. We decided to take a break and spend a few hours working my male English Springer Spaniel "Buck" in some familiar woodcock cover. With the seasonal weather of an Indian summer and late October days still long, we were hoping some flight birds would still be in the area. It was already late in the afternoon as we gathered our gear and drove to the back pasture. We stopped the truck along the seventeen-acre swamp that boarders one side of our property, and decided to work the bottoms and edges. As we uncased our guns and I slipped the bell around Buck’s neck, I had a good feeling about what this covert might hold for us.

Buck had his nose to the ground and was running through the tall grass of the pasture. Paul and I had started through the gate of barbed-wire fence when Buck rejoined us. We stopped atop the oak ridge and loaded-up. About fifty yards in, and halfway between the field’s edge and the swamp, Buck veered sharply to the right and flushed the first timberdoodle of the day. Paul, slightly below me and to the right, dropped the woodcock as it attempted to sail past him. Buck made the retrieve and we continued along. Coming down the hill towards the swamp there is a gauntlet of blow-downs and thorn tangles. In the broken cover between the blow-downs and the alder thickets that line the near edge of the swamp, is a large area of classic woodcock cover. Getting there is the hard part.

Breaking through the snarl of broken branches, waist high barriers, stickers and thorns, Buck charged into a patch of saplings and flushed another bird. As luck would have it, I was still standing in a low covering of thorns that tangled my feet up. I was off balance and not in a good position to shoot. As I tried to adjust my position and turn to intercept the flight path of the rising woodcock, several small saplings and branches prevented my barrels from coming to mark. Paul, watching the whole process, looked at me and shrugged knowingly. We decided to continue in the direction that the woodcock had flown, knowing he probably hadn’t gone very far. Working the cover between the hillside and the alder thickets, we hadn’t gone more than thirty yards from the last flush when Buck suddenly looped back to the left. He wasn’t ten yards from me when three woodcocks launched skyward.

	The Author and his male English springer spaniel "Buck", with their Virginia woodcock double. Photo by: Author

The sound of their whistling wings filled the air, and it seemed as though time stood still. It was as if pure instinct took over as I raised the Browning on the bird ahead of me. In that moment, I pulled the trigger and almost before the bird started it’s decent towards the earth, I swung the gun to the right and was on the second of the three woodcock. The report of the Citori’s upper barrel started the clock ticking again. As I lowered the gun and cleared the empty hulls from the chambers, Buck was already returning with the first bird. I sent him to the spot I had marked the second, and after a few moments, he emerged with a mouth full of feathers. I accepted the retrieve and gave Buck plenty of praise. I had scored my first double on woodcock.

With the brace of timberdoodle in my vest and the sun getting low over an autumn colored tree line, we called it a day. I whistled-up Buck and slipped the lead around his neck. As we crested the hill, a pair of wood ducks sailed over us towards the swamp below. Paul and I watched them set their wings and disappear into the flooded timber. We didn’t speak much on the way back to the truck, each being embraced in the memory of woodcock.