American Woodcock in February

Having seen a report of an American Woodcock at Fresh Pond on February 21, I stopped by Lusitania Meadow to try my luck at dusk on February 24.  The wooded area adjacent to the field seemed like a good bet for appropriate habitat, and sure enough at 5:50 I heard this repeated "peent" in the woods just off Concord Avenue (click on the triangle to play the sound):




I ran my iPhone voice memo through Cornell's Raven Lite software, and generated this spectrogram fingerprint of the call, which neatly matches the reference below:

Recorded Lusitania Woods, Fresh Pond, Cambridge, February 24, 2012, 5:50 p.m. with iPhone. Spectrogram created in Raven Lite 1.0., ©2003-2009 Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

      Figure 3. Vocalizations of the American Woodcock: (a) Peent preceded by Tuko (Borror Lab of Bioacoustics (BLB 325 Courtesy of the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics, Ohio State University.
From: Keppie, D. M. and R. M. Whiting, Jr. 1994. American Woodcock (Scolopax minor), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu

This is early for woodcocks. Cornell researchers have noticed early migrations in 2012:

 “The exceptionally warm winter across much of the Eastern US means that migrants may be on the move earlier than usual this year, and we are already seeing this in many places… Woodcocks typically move into mid-latitudes starting in late February, with arrival in more northerly states in mid-March. Many places (as far north as Maine!) are already seeing pioneering woodcocks up to three weeks ahead of schedule, and like Killdeer, this pattern can be expected to continue. Watch for them in the evening in areas where old fields mix with younger woodlots. On calm evenings, you may hear them 'peenting' and displaying.” 

Early or not, it's amazing that this secretive forest bird—the only sandpiper relative that lives in the forest in North America—can find this small patch of woods in the city. American Woodcocks have specific habitat requirements—wet soils and early-successional forest with access to clearings for their display flights. This bird picked out Lusitania woods at the edge of a sea of roofs and parking lots.

It’s probably migrating through, and won’t stay.  (There are no eBird records of woodcocks at Fresh Pond in the summer.)  On the other hand, these birds want the exactly kind of habitat that the disturbance history and meadow management practices have created at Lusitania Field.  If there’s woodcock habitat here, this is it. 

In any case, this “peent” sound in February speaks to the importance of conserving patches of forest and meadow habitat in urban settings.