Rare town and city sightings of shy bird
vision to help them spot approaching predators. Basically this adaptation means that the woodcock can sit motionless but still spot any danger in the form of foxes or humans. I’ve actually walked up to a woodcock squat in the snow, sticking out like, well, a sore thumb, and the bird only moved when I moved my hand towards it.
Woodcock eat mostly earthworms, which they extract using their long bills. However during the cold winter of 1962-3, when the ground became too hard to penetrate, some starving woodcock were found to be coming to urban areas in search of food.
The RSPB is encouraging people to interfere as little as possible if they find a woodcock which has strayed off course and isn’t visibly injured. Given time to recover in peace, they will normally fly off and resume their journeys when ready.
The woodcock is one of my favourite birds, and their ‘roding’ flight is unmistakeable at dusk, and my painting seen here, is in the woods at the side of Rhodeswood Reservoir in Longdendale, my old stomping ground.
The woodcock is classed as a game bird and in some quarters highly prized for it’s unique taste. Some fans of the meat would tell you to roast the bird whole without removing the innards, and they’d fight you to suck the brains out. Honestly that’s a true story, although I did make the fighting bit up.
A poet friend of mine
Ian Marriot after coming across a woodcock sitting tight, described the moment in his poem ‘Shyness’ from his award winning collection, ‘The Hollow Bone’.