Timberdoodle

 As a songbird bander I get to handle and study a pretty wide range of small, familiar perching birds from local Black-capped Chickadees to the migrant spring warblers and thrushes until, finally, I see the local summer residents on their territories. 

                  However, when you put up a mist net you never know what might show up. One morning as I made the rounds checking nets an unexpected loud whir of wings came up from the ground. My heart jumped as the bird flew straight ahead of me and right into the mist net I was going to check. There, in the bottom tier of the net was my first ever American Woodcock (Scolopax minor) or “Timberdoodle” as some of the local hunters call them. A large, plump bird of wetlands and forests this was a real treat.