AMERICAN WOODCOCK 61 



BUBICOLA MINOR (Gmelin) 



AMERICAN WOODCOCK 



HABITS 



This mysterious hermit of the alders, this recluse of the boggy 

 thickets, this wood nymph of crepuscular habits is a common bird 

 and well distributed in our Eastern States, widely known, but not 

 intimately known. Its quiet retiring habits do not lead to human 

 intimacy. It may live almost in our midst unnoticed. Its needs 

 are modest, its habitat is circumscribed, and it clings with tenacity 

 to its favorite haunts even when closely encroached upon by civiliza- 

 tion. The banks of a stream running through my place, close to 

 the heart of the city, were once famous woodcock covers in which 

 the birds persisted long after the surroundings were built up; and 

 even within recent years I have had a pair of woodcocks living in 

 the shrubbery along the stream for a week or two at a time. 



Who knows where to look for woodcocks? Their haunts are so 

 varied that one may not be surprised to find them almost anywhere, 

 especially on migrations. Flight birds are here to-day and gone 

 to-morrow. Their favorite resorts are alder thickets along the 

 banks of meandering streams or spring-fed boggy runs ; rich bottom 

 lands or scrubby hollows, overgrown with willows, maples, alders, 

 and poison sumac; or the scrubby edges of damp, second-growth 

 woods, mixed with birches ; any such place will suit them where they 

 can find moist soil, not too wet or too sour, well supplied with 

 earthworms. During the hot, sultry weather of July and August, 

 the molting season, they seek the seclusion of cool, moist, leafy 

 woods or dense thickets; or they may resort to the cool hillside or 

 mountain bogs, fed by cool springs; or, if the weather is very dry, 

 they may be found in the wet grassy meadows. Woodcocks do not 

 like too much water and, after heavy rains, they may be driven 

 from their usual covers to well-drained hillsides, sparsely covered 

 with small birches, maples, locusts, and cedars. Sometimes they are 

 found on the tops of mountains; George B. Sennett (1887) saw a 

 pair on the top of Roan Mountain in North Carolina, at an elevation 

 of 6,000 feet, " in a clump of balsams ; the overflow from numerous 

 springs which had their sources at this spot formed an open, ad- 

 joining marsh of several acres." 



Woodcocks often appear in unexpected places, such as city parks, 

 yards, gardens, orchards, or even lawns. John T. Nichols writes to 

 me: 



A neighbor (Mr. W. S. Dana) called for me at about 10 o'clock in the morn- 

 ing of a sparklingly clear, rather cool summer's day, to show me a wood- 

 cock that was feeding on his lawn, which slopes down to an almost fresh water 

 arm of Moriches Bay. We found the bird still busily engaged where he had 



