Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship
SHELBURNE — Song sparrows and goldfinches sang in the trees at Shelburne Bay Park as birders from Queer Birders of Burlington peered at them through their binoculars. Between quiet moments on the trail, they swapped stories about birds and frogs they’d encountered in the past.
The group had a clear goal for the spring day’s trek: to spot the American woodcock. Also called “timberdoodles,” the stubby shorebirds migrate to the Green Mountains for their breeding season in early March and stay until early May. During this period, avian enthusiasts keep their ears open for the species’ renowned “peent!” call.
“There’s no other sound like it. You might think it was a strange frog, if you didn’t know better,” said Silas Miller, an avid birder from Hinesburg. “Once you know the sound, you can’t unhear it. It’s very distinct.”
Most woodcocks migrate to the Northeastern U.S. and Southern Canada for nesting. But nesting woodcocks can be found as far south as the Carolinas, said Andrew Bouton, the migratory game bird project leader at the Vermont Fish and Wildlife.
The birds took a pitstop in New York earlier this month.
Birders flocked to Bryant Park to try and catch a glimpse of the woodcocks’ quirky dance. The wobbly head movement is their way of finding food, Bouton said.
“They’re stomping on the ground as hard as they can, which creates rhythms in the soil which trigger earthworms and some other invertebrates to move around,” Bouton said. “Then they can locate them and then grab them to feed.”
Farther north, the birds find more suitable and expansive habitat with abundant nutrients.
Woodcocks rely on shrubby areas for nesting and cover from predators, while nearby forests, especially alder and dogwood trees, provide space for feeding and roosting. Open areas are also essential for their courtship display.
“They require a mosaic of habitat,” said Jillian Liner, director of conservation for Audubon Vermont.
Miller, the birder from Hinesburg, has seen that habitat up close. Their backyard has hosted woodcocks over the past couple seasons.
“We have woodcocks showing up every night, hunting worms in our compost pile,” Miller said about last fall. “At first, I thought it was another hawk, but no. It was a woodcock just getting worms. And it was pretty cool to see that.”
This spring, Miller watched male woodcocks perform their courtship displays near a stream on their property.
During that display, the males spiral up in the air, their wings producing a soft whistling sound, before zigzagging back down to the ground near a potential mate.
But Vermont’s aging forests and deforestation have put these displays in jeopardy.
The American woodcock population has declined over the last three decades, according to studies from Vermont Fish and Wildlife.
Abandoned farmland is an essential habitat for woodcocks. But as nearby forests have matured, the trees have reclaimed those open spaces, and the woodcocks have less of that shrubby land they need for protection.
A lot of shrubby areas are getting cleared for development with not enough proper forest management, leaving the birds with less spaces to migrate to, and safely lay their eggs, Bouton said.
But these issues can be mitigated by individual homeowners.
Woodcocks don’t travel great distances to meet their daily needs, and a single homeowner can manage the species’ average home range of roughly 25 acres.
“Landowners who own a bit of land can help American woodcock by managing their property in a way that creates young, dense patches of habitat, especially near wet areas,” Liner wrote in an email.
Liner said that one of the most effective ways to do this is cutting small forest patches to encourage the regrowth of saplings and shrubs and prevent larger trees from dominating the land.
In more suburban settings, Liner said, homeowners can shrink lawn areas by planting dense and brushy native shrubs.
Back at Shelburne Bay Park, the birders never caught a glimpse of the American woodcock, but as the group passed along the trail, a single, raspy “peent!” cut through the trees.