The American Woodcock is one of the first birds back in the spring, performing its elaborate courtship display as early as late February. Around dusk, the male woodcocks will come to their display sites in open areas near their normal wooded habitat. The male struts and turns on the ground while 'peent-ing', then after a while, takes to the air for a long circular flight while making 'twirling' sounds with its flight feathers. At the end of the flight, it becomes silent and flies back to the original ground display site or an alternate site.

Length: 21 - 28 cm (8 - 11 inches)

Physical characteristics: A plump bird with a short tail, short legs and a very long bill. The eyes are set toward the back of the head. Both sexes are similar in color. The body is the color and pattern of dead leaves, and black stripes run across its eyes and the back of its head. The females are larger than the males.

Voice: Song is a low-pitched nasal 'peent.'

Breeding habitat:
The American Woodcock is found in early-successional forests, damp woods, or thickets near a boggy stream. It prefers areas with moist soil where earthworms are easily found and extracted. This bird also needs open areas nearby, such as clear-cuts, agricultural fields and forest openings, for roosting and courtship display.

Mating system:
Polygynous, there is no pair bond in this species. One brood is raised per year. The male performs a springtime display that begins on the ground, progresses to a spiral flight into the air and ends with a steep descent. This display may be repeated as many as 10 - 20 times, mostly during the evening or at dawn.

Nest:
The nest is located on the ground. It may be a scraped hollow, lined with dead leaves, or the eggs may be laid on dry litter with no nest built at all.

Eggs:
The female lays 3 - 5 pinkish to pale buff eggs that are spotted or blotched with browns. 38mm (1.5?).

Chick development:
The chicks are precocial at hatching, which occurs after 20 - 21 days of incubation by the female. The mother leads the chicks from the nest shortly after hatching. Within a few days the chicks forage for food as the adults do. The young are almost fully grown at four weeks, but remain with the mother for 6 - 8 weeks. The male does not participate in the care of the chicks.

Diet:
A large percentage of the American Woodcock diet is made up of earthworms. This bird will eat other soil invertebrates, and will eat seeds ? particularly in the winter. It forages for worms by probing in the earth with its long bill, after locating them by stamping its feet on the ground.

Parasites:
Feather mites of the family Pteronyssidae (det. B. M. O?Connor) were collected from a road-killed specimen found near Elkmont in 1997. This family is not known to include species that are parasitic on sandpipers (Scolopacidae) so this record is intriguing but could represent material that somehow got onto the specimen after death.

Conservation Biology:
The American Woodcock is a popular game bird in the United States. It has shown population declines, its decline is believed to be due more to a loss of preferred habitat than to hunting. Pesticides are also thought to be a problem in some areas of its range.

Region Status: On the Tennessee Natural Heritage Program Watch List (2001).

Breeding: The American Woodcock is found in eastern North America, from southern Ontario and Quebec to northeast Texas and across to northern Florida.

Winter: This species is a short-distance migrant, wintering in the southern portion of its breeding range and into southern Texas, Louisiana and Florida.

American Woodcock is an uncommon year round resident in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. These birds are nocturnal and well camouflaged so they are not frequently observed in the park. It is difficult to assess their true abundance in the park without a study targeted at monitoring this specific species. A survey of breeding birds performed in the park, from 1996-1999, did not detect any individual American Woodcock during actual point counts, which are conducted after sunrise. This survey was not designed to inventory nocturnal species. Two individual American Woodcock were observed in the Greenbrier area before dawn (and before the counts) on one of the survey days. Previous park records indicate that most American Woodcock observations have been made at lower elevations, but individuals have been noted throughout the elevation range of the Smokies (Alsop, 1991). Courtship displays have been observed at 4,900' elevation at Purchase Knob on the North Carolina side of the park.

References:

Alsop, F. J. 1991. Birds of the Smokies. Great Smoky Mountains Natural History Association, Gatlinburg, TN.

Bent, A. C. and Collaborators. 1996 - 2002. American Woodcock, In Life Histories of Familiar North American Birds, ed., Patricia Query Newforth.

Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of the American Ornithologists' Union. 1998. Check-list of North American Birds: the Species of Birds of North America from the Arctic through Panama, including the West Indies and Hawaiian Islands, 7th ed

Ehrlich, P. R, D. S. Dobkin, and D. Wheye. 1988. The Birder's Handbook: a Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds. Simon and Schuster, Inc., New York.

Elphick, C, J. B. Dunning, Jr., and D. A. Sibley, eds. 2001. The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Gough, G. A., Sauer, J. R., Iliff, M. Patuxent Bird Identification Infocenter. 1998. Version 97.1. Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD. http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/infocenter.html.

Keppie, D. M. and R. M. Whiting, Jr. 1994. American Woodcock. In The Birds of North America, No. 100 (A. Poole, P. Stettenheim, and F. Gill, Eds.). Philadelphia: The Academy of Natural Sciences; Washington, DC: The American Ornithologists? Union.

Sibley, D. A. 2000. The Sibley Guide to Birds. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Stupka, A. 1963. Notes on the birds of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. University of Tennessee Press.