Woodcock: The Ghost Bird of Autumn

by Larry Brown

The first woodcock I ever saw was memorable, but I certainly wouldn't call him impressive. I had hunted neither grouse nor woodcock, but, enchanted by the writing of George Bird Evans, I'd resolved to locate some in my native state of Iowa. Pushing through the thickest brush I could find, following my little Brittany--also a grouse and woodcock rookie--I didn't quite know what to expect.

A solid point at first contact seemed too much to hope for, but that's what Deke delivered. Ready for the rocket-assisted takeoff of a grouse, I slid my way past the dog. The long-billed, quail-sized bird that fluttered up almost in my face, only to settle back into the cover some 50 feet away, was not what I'd anticipated.

However, once the surprise wore off, I realized that I'd just seen my first woodcock. The bird held obligingly while Deke pointed a second time. Equally obliging, he flew into the skeet load of 9s I threw his way.

Now, over two decades and hundreds of woodcock later--the majority of which, I might add, no more than hurried on their way south by my passing salutes--I remain under the spell of these mysterious little birds. Although I still find woodcock in that same covert where Deke and I collected our first long-bill, I've now had the good fortune to hunt them in the somewhat more classical coverts of Minnesota and Upper Michigan. And regardless of the fact that I live in the midst of some of the best pheasant country anywhere, the little woodcock, not much more than a tenth the size of a mature ringneck, still casts its gentle spell over me.

Migrations

Part of it has to do with the bird's unpredictable comings and goings. Not being a waterfowl hunter, I tend to look upon these clandestine arrivals and departures as if they were nature's version of sorcery. Old-time writers used to refer to "a fall of woodcock" as if an unseen band had sprinkled them into the coverts.

Last fall, for example, I was hunting woodcock in Michigan's Upper Peninsula early in October. We had steady shooting, but for the most part, nothing spectacular. And when we dressed our birds, we found that they had yet to accumulate the store of fat required for their long journey to warmer climes.

These birds, by and large, were probably locals--Upper Michigan having a fairly substantial resident woodcock population. In fact, talking of flights up there is a bit misleading. Jim Hammill, a district supervisor with the Michigan DNR, is a dedicated woodcock hunter himself and a recognized authority on the birds. He says that the really good shooting up there comes when the birds start staging for their migration. Under such circumstances, they'll often bunch up in certain coverts, and they will have been feeding heavily--and storing up fat--prior to their departure. We were not finding those conditions.

Three days after I left Michigan, my shorthair Heidi and I were working the same covert where, 20 years previously, Deke had pointed that first woodcock for me. More than anything else, I wanted to enjoy a nearly perfect mid-October day with perhaps a grouse or two and maybe a stray woodcock thrown in for good measure. Based on what I had seen in Michigan, the last thing I expected to find in Iowa, some 400 miles south, were flight birds.

An hour later, I was sitting on a large boulder on the banks of the Volga River field dressing a limit of timberdoodles. Every bird had a heavy strip of fat running up its sternum. That and the fact that the same covert had been almost empty of birds only a couple of weeks earlier told me that, contrary to my expectations, I had encountered a flight.

For me, such mysteries typify woodcock hunting. Perhaps I'm in a minority with my sentiments, but I feel that the woodcock's unpredictability adds to the charm and the challenge of the sport.

Some outdoor writers have theorized in print about how you can predict when woodcock will arrive in a given locale. Personally, I don't have much of a problem with the "where" part--through exhaustive research with bird dog and scattergun, I've accumulated a fair number of reliable woodcock coverts. But they are reliable only insofar as I know that they will hold birds sometime during the fall. I have a much tougher time pinning down the birds' flight schedule.

Greg Sepik, a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, works out of the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge in northern Maine. He has been studying woodcock habits and habitat for a number of years, and says that we still have a lot to learn about the birds.

"Fall weather patterns play a critical role in woodcock migrations," comments Sepik. "When you consider that these birds typically fly only a few hundred yards per day in the summer, it sort of puts their fall migration into perspective."

"Usually, they'll wait for a front to come through before they move, then ride the tailwind south," he continued. "We still don't know much about how far they can fly in a single night. We did track one bird from Maine that was shot near Hyde Park, New York, just two days later. In that period of time, it covered some 350 miles."

I think anyone who has seen many woodcock fly would judge that to be a rather remarkable journey for the little bird. However, average distance covered during the migration is another one of those unknown factors. Sheldon's The Book of the American Woodcock throws some light on the birds' northward migration in the spring, reporting that some birds studied moved from as little as seven miles to more than 50 miles per night.

My personal theory is that the fall migration is likely to be accomplished at a more rapid pace. For one thing, the birds have a much better chance of riding a strong tailwind. Winds in the spring, on the other hand, remain predominantly out of the north during much of the birds' peak migration time, basically the month of March.

Also, they may be racing to stay ahead of freezing ground in the fall. In contrast, in the spring they are moving from an area where temperatures have been mild and feeding conditions good to their breeding grounds, where all the snow may not yet have melted. While it is doubtless the mating urge that pushes them on, the survival instinct may keep them from moving at top speed.

Only fairly extensive telemetry studies will give us the answer to such questions.

Woodcock in Trouble

One fact which is unfortunately all too clear is that the woodcock is a species in trouble. Population declines in the Atlantic Region were first observed over 20 years ago, and eventually resulted in the season being shortened and the daily bag reduced from five to three birds. Although the Central Region was still showing a population increase as recently as the mid-seventies, bird numbers there too have now begun to slide.

Could hunting be part of the problem? Joseph Artmann of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in his "Woodcock Status Report, 1976," estimated that the total number of birds bagged annually in the United States and Canada increased nearly 80 percent from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies. Although writers of only a few decades ago regularly described the woodcock as an under-hunted species, such an increase in hunting mortality should be of concern.

One good way to attempt to measure hunting pressure and the effect it has on a bird population is to band birds and evaluate the rate at which bands are returned. The biology department of Northern Michigan University is currently undertaking such a study. They have been capturing and banding birds in Dickinson County, Michigan, in an area that is quite popular with woodcock hunters.

In the fall, personnel involved in the study intensively canvas area hunters. Last year, the return rate on bands ran about 7 percent, which although higher than the national average of about 4 percent, is not especially high considering the efforts taken to survey virtually everyone hunting the Dickinson County study area. Although results are still preliminary, they would tend to indicate that even the relatively heavy hunting pressure experienced on this area is insufficient in and of itself to produce any significant drop in bird numbers from year to year.

But how about hunting pressure after they head south? Presumably, most birds from Upper Michigan will cross Wisconsin, where the woodcock is a very popular game bird, on their way south. If they then follow the Mississippi or its tributaries, hunting pressure will drop radically for much of the remainder of the journey. South of Wisconsin and Minnesota, woodcock hunting is not an especially popular sport.

Birds that pass through states farther east, however, are likely to encounter more pressure over a longer stretch of their migration. Woodcock hunting is quite popular in Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia.

Estimates vary, but virtually all experts agree that a solid majority of our woodcock population winters in Louisiana. And while Louisiana has always had a woodcock hunting tradition, hunting pressure there also appears to have increased over the last decade or so.

The Woodcock Wing Survey, run for a number of years by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, provides some interesting data here. In 1974, participating hunters nationwide sent in over 20,000 wings. By 1990, that total had dropped below 10,000. But during the same period of time, the number of wings sent in by Louisiana hunters more than doubled--from under 200 in 1974 to over 800 in 1990. That figure in and of itself is certainly not shocking. But you must remember that wing study participants are only the tip of the iceberg. If hunting pressure on the birds' prime wintering grounds doubled in just over 15 years, it could affect overall numbers (when added to hunting mortality in the north and along the migration route, in addition to deaths from natural causes). A woodcock hen seldom lays more than four eggs. Although chick survival is good, it is obvious that with those kinds of population dynamics, the species can only stand so much pressure.

Woodcock Habitat

But hunting can be easily regulated, if necessary, as it has been in the East, to help compensate for losses. What appears even more critical is what is happening to woodcock habitat.

Abandoned farms in New England provided excellent regrowth, the kind of habitat woodcock prefer, from early in this century until fairly recently. Now much of the forest has reached climax stage, of minimal benefit to the birds. Urban sprawl has also made significant habitat inroads in the East.

Large expanses of aspen forest in the Upper Midwest have traditionally provided the same kind of high quality woodcock habitat as did the old New England farms. However, there has been a slow but steady decrease in aspen stands, some of which have been replaced by conifers--again of little benefit to woodcock.

Significant changes have also occurred in Louisiana. Farming practices have been altered and swamps have been drained.

In short, the woodcock is losing out almost everywhere it calls home.

Greg Sepik sees another culprit in the habitat problem--the whitetail deer, whose numbers have boomed almost in inverse proportion to the woodcocks' decline.

"We know what effects overbrowsing by deer in early growth forest has had on other ground-nesting birds," explained Sepik. "Although we don't have specific information on woodcock, it seems logical to conclude that the increasing deer population is also having a negative impact on what could otherwise be prime woodcock habitat."

Again, habitat is an area where further study is needed. Working at Moosehorn, Sepik has been able to show that what was traditionally thought to be good woodcock habitat was in fact used by the birds only because it was the best available. When better early growth areas were developed, the birds moved into them.

Working for Woodcock

Bit by bit, we are learning more about the ghost birds of autumn--about their habitat, their migration, and the impact hunting has on them. The Ruffed Grouse Society is one organization which deserves much credit for its efforts on behalf of the woodcock. Likewise, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sponsors both Greg Sepik's work at Moosehorn and the woodcock wing collection survey. If you are a woodcock hunter, you can help by sending in wings from the birds you shoot. Write the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Migratory Bird Management, Laurel, MD 20708. They will send you envelopes for your wings.

Other organizations, such as the Department of Biology at Northern Michigan University, are helping through their band study in Upper Michigan. I shot my first banded bird last season and was more than happy to share my hunting information with the graduate student who stopped to question me. (I got to keep my band, and in return for my cooperation, he sent me a preliminary copy of the results of their research.)

The woodcock needs such friends if we are to continue to enjoy its mysterious comings and goings in our secret coverts. I want my children and grandchildren to have the opportunity to pursue woodcock. I do not want them to know the birds as ghosts of the past, hunted only on the yellowing, faded pages of old sporting magazines.


Copyright (c) 1996 Larry Brown. All right reserved.

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