Sky Dancer

Last night I went to the Eastman Nature Center in Dayton for a woodcock experience.  I know Offspring #1 would giggle uncontrollably at that sentence just because of the name of the bird.  In case you didn't know a woodcock is a bird.  Unfortunate name, I know.  Other names for this bird are timber doodle, bog sucker or hokumpoke.  In the spring the woodcock do an incredible mating dance and I was there to witness it last night, first hand, right in front of me.  These woodcocks put on quite a show.  Woodcocks are strange little birds.  Their necks and legs seem unfortunately short. They have eyes where most bird's ears would be and ears where most bird's eyes would be.  Their long beak has a prehensile tip.  The woodcock can move the end of it's beak separately. The woodcocks walks along in what I think is a sexy way but it could also be compared to someone walking on a lake with new ice in early winter testing it to make sure it will hold your weight. Personally the walk reminds me of the way I clean the house on weekends with the music up full blast.  Decide for yourself:

The woodcocks bends it's head down toward the ground.  With it's ears at the top of it's beak it can listen for the sound of it's favorite food, worms.  One theory is the woodcock walks the way it does to cause tremors in the earth and send worms to the surface. If a worm is heard the woodcock and insert it's beak into the earth, sense a worm, and move the tip of it's beak to snatch that worm up and gobble it down. A naturalist led a group of 10 of us walked down a bike path for about 15 minutes and waited for the sun to set.  As we walked the chorus frogs were singing.  As we passed their pond the frogs suddenly became silent.  That was weird.  Did they understand that we knew they were talking dirty?  We kept walking. Sun set was about 8:15.  Woodcocks only display when there are two foot candles of light per square foot such as what we get at dusk and dawn. When it's too light out, they won't dance.  When it's too dark out, they won't dance.  On a clearer night like we had last night the dance lasted about an hour. While we waited we could hear geese honking, turkeys gobbling, white throated sparrows calling and field sparrows chirping.  We also heard a very unusual sound that none of us knew at first.  We later concluded it must have been a red squirrel screaming bloody murder over and over and over again.  A coyote howled.  At 8:25 a small brown bird came flying by and almost hit one of us in the head.  Our naturalist instructor, Elaine, nodded with a big smile indicating it was a woodcock.  Within 10 seconds we heard the first "Peent."  We were told to expect between 4 and 100 repetitions of "Peent" before the first flight.  Each "Peent" sounded different because the bird was turning 90 degrees after each call - much like I can hear the tornado siren get louder and softer as it turns on the pole.  Between each "Peent" was one or two hiccups.  I know those hiccups!  Where have I heard those hiccups before?  Eventually I figure out I heard the hiccups on one of the frog and toad quiz sound clips.  After the fourth call the woodcock flew in large circles up into the sky up to 300 feet.  Elaine told us this process took about 30 seconds in which the bird was looking only upward.  These 30 seconds were the time for us to change positions if we wanted to get closer to the bird.  Otherwise we supposed to sit still and be quiet. Some people moved often but I moved only once.  For me to get up off the cold ground and move and sit down in 30 seconds is a physical accomplishment. The woodcock feathers made a noise on the way up.  Once at 300 feet the bird stopped circling up and zig zagged downward while making noises with it's mouth.  We still had enough light to see the bird cut through the center of the observers and land in the grass right by us.  Right away it started "Peent!"  This time when it landed it chose a spot on the bike path right in front of me.  I was six feet away from the woodcock and saw it "Peent" and turn around in circles before flying up into the air again.  The bird flew up many times in the hour and we could hear other woodcocks doing the same thing over the next hill.  As I sat there in the wet grass on the side of the bike path, jeans getting wet, shivering with cold, and imagining the wood ticks and deer ticks crawling lickety-split toward me, a voice in my head asked, "Is this fun?"  I could be home watching an episode of "Mad Men" and getting ready for bed.  The coyote howled again.  I decided that watching and listening to these woodcocks sky dancing is the ideal activity for me on this night in April.  I loved it.  I think I'll come back next year.