Heart-stopping encounters with the wiliest of game birds

WITH A sudden clatter of wings on leafless twigs a woodcock jumped out of a conifer plantation’s understorey in the Washburn valley and wove a twisting course between tree trunks until it vanished from view.

The encounter was my second with a woodcock in as many weeks after months of seeing not a single bird.

It is, in fact, quite usual in autumn to come across more of this plump wader since the native population is joined by a large influx from northern Scandinavia and Russia. As many as a million birds are thought to fly down the Baltic and North Sea to spend the winter in the UK.

Few birdwatchers would ascribe the word “beautiful” to a woodcock. But everyone who sees the bird up close is struck by the intricate elegance of its plumage – especially the rich rust-like marbling on its wings and creamy breast with dark brown bars. And that long straight bill looks fearsome. It could well cause serious injury if the bird flew straight into you.

Its plumage has been described as the best example of camouflage in the world of nature. Most people find it impossible to see the bird as it squats on the woodland floor surrounded by dead leaves. Such is the woodcock’s confidence in its disguise that during the breeding season it will sit tight on the nest until a human is just a couple of seconds away from inadvertently stepping on it. Then the bird leaps up and creates a heartstopping moment for the intruder.

I usually come across woodcocks at dusk in spring and summer when the males perform their famous “roding” flights, which can last between 15 minutes and a full hour. They circle their woodland territory at just above tree-top level while creepily uttering two distinct notes. One is a low croak, originally thought to have been produced by its wings, and the other is a thin “tsiwick” which seems to carry over long distances.

Not being a member of the field sports fraternity I have no experience of raising a shotgun to a woodcock as it goes hammering through the trees, but I’m told it is one of the wiliest of game birds. In the 1940s the exclusive Woodcock Club was established for anyone who, in front of witnesses, manages to shoot birds with a left and right as they go zigzagging through trees.

Many consider it to be the tastiest bird on the game menu, and it is traditional to roast a bird with its innards intact. After cooking these are removed and spread on buttered toast like pâté.

The vast majority of woodcock shot in the UK are the winter visitors from northern Europe, perhaps because they seem to have markedly less energy than resident birds. That’s just as well, because the British Trust for Ornithology says the UK’s resident breeding population has declined by about one-third due, it is thought, to more woodland management and also increasing deer populations browsing the understorey that woodcocks need for cover.