Album: Becasse

Ivan Turgenev "A Sportsman's Notebook" 1850 Your heart grows tired of waiting, and suddenly - but only sportsmen will understand me - suddenly in the deep stillness there comes a special kind of whirr and swish, you hear the measured stroke of swift wings - and the woodcock, with his long beak drooping gracefully down, come swimming out from a dark birch-tree to meet your fire. New York Times November 13, 1910 "Hunting Woodcock, Quail, and Grouse; Some Hints to Sportsmen Who Contemplate Bagging Feathered Game" The woodcock is regarded by many as the foremost game bird of America. The woodcock occupies the same position to the bobwhite as the black bass does to the brook trout or vice versa. The woodcock is still the puzzling bird of mystery. Now regarded as on of the vanishing birds of America, a full game bag is a thing rarely ever found in these days of much shooting. Related to the snipe family, it is swift and erratic in flight. It is a migratory bird, unlike the quail in that respect, and rarely tarries long in one place. During the day the woodcock keeps to the woods or woody swamps and toward evening flies across swampy places and fields and meadows. Evening is therefore the best time to go a-gunning for this bird with the long beak. It feeds at night, pressing its long bill into the ground, feeling rather than seeing its food. This habit of night feeding has led to calling it in some localities the night partridge. In flight the woodcock, unlike the duck and geese, fly in a loose manner. Like the ruffed grouse when pursued by man and dog, they believe their coloring, like that of the surroundings, will not lead to their detection. They feel so secure that frequently they will not fly until the man with the gun is upon them. In this hunting, the moment the dogs point, the sportsman behind the gun must be cool, calm, and collected. The bird goes straight up and poises for an instant before it begins the horizontal or downward flight. That instant is the time to shoot. Of late years the woodcock has been greatly depleted in numbers. Four causes have contributed heavily; natural enemies, severe storms during migration, lack of proper protection during Winter, and Summer and Spring shooting.

Recordings of woodcock vocalizations can be heard here http://mrines.com/Birds/woodcock/ ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: 'Woodcock Ways' by Henry Marion Hall, illustrated by Ralph Ray, Oxford University Press 1946. 'Woodcock Shooting' by Edmund W. Davis, Wilderness Adventures Press, Inc. 2001 (originally published in 1908) illustrated by Brett James Smith. 'Timberdoodle!' by Frank Woolner, Crown Publishers 1974, illustrated with a many black and white photographs of hunts including with Andy Devine and Grits Gresham in Louisiana, Tap Tapply, Paul Kukonen, Charles Waterman, and George Bird Evans. "Becasse, The Louisiana Woodcock Story" by Armand McHenry. "Timberdoodle Tales" by Tom F Waters. "Come October: Exclusively Woodcock" George Bird Evans, Michael McIntosh, Gene Hill. Illustrated by David Maas & Bruce Langton, 1991. http://mdc.mo.gov/conmag/1997/10/60.htm http://timberdoodle.org/