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One of the most distinctive of American game birds is the woodcock. They nest in the Northeast, including south- 

 eastern Canada, the Lake States, and elsewhere. The species' wintering grounds are in the more southern States, 

 especially Louisiana, where unfrozen ground permits the birds to probe for the staple of their diet, angleworms. 

 (Photo by Howard L. Mendall) 



Green, white, or red head marks on the female 

 did not prevent reestablishment of the pair bond 

 upon the return of the female to her mate, at which 

 time the rate of perch cooing decreased rapidly. 

 Yellow head marks on the female did prevent re- 

 establishment of pair bonds, and the rate of perch 

 cooing in previous mates remained high. Pair 

 bonds were quickly re-formed when yellow head 

 marks were removed. 



Significance of these findings to field studies 

 employing color-marked birds is not yet known. 

 Preliminary results indicate that colored back 

 straps do not have the effects on behavior that 

 head marking does. 



Mourning dove food habits in Neio York. — 

 Study of the mourning dove by the New York 

 Unit has centered on its food habits in Tompkins 

 County. A total of 181 mourning doves were 

 collected, including 103 adults and 78 juveniles. 

 By considering the phenology of weed-seed avail- 

 ability and crop harvesting patterns in relation to 

 utilization of these foods by doves, the research 

 has established significant relations in dove food 

 habits in the Northeast. Wheat occurred in the 

 highest frequency (44 percent), followed by fox- 

 tail grass (36 percent), corn (27 percent), buck- 

 wheat (20 percent), and lesser ragweed (21 per- 

 cent ). 



Earlier woodcock season. — As reported a year 

 ago, the woodcock season was advanced 10 days in 

 the fall of 1962, to October 10, because research by 

 the Massachusetts Unit indicated that many birds 

 migrated through the State before the season that 

 opened on October 20. Presumably because of 

 this action, the woodcock harvest in Massachusetts, 

 as shown by hunter questionnaires, almost doubled 

 in 1962 and in 1963. 



Woodcock production. — As a means of measur- 

 ing the annual woodcock production, a sample of 

 hunters in the United States and Canada is asked 

 each year to send woodcock wings to the Migra- 

 tory Bird Populations Station. Hunters pro- 

 vided 15,315 wings in 1962. Examination of the 

 wings lias revealed both the ratio of adult to 

 current-year birds and the sex composition of the 

 kill. A comparison of the ratio of young per 

 adult female indicated no change in productivity 

 from 1961 to 1962, a conclusion supported by 

 spring counts of breeding-population size in 1962 

 and 1963. 



The reliability of singing-ground counts is 

 being tested in Michigan, where 126 randomly 

 selected routes were censused in 196:5. These 

 routes, together with regular nonrandom routes, 

 will be covered again in 1964. With 2 years of 

 data it will be possible to compare both numbers 



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