The Woodcock Are Here!

This morning my two GSPs pointed two woodcock males on the few bare spots on our property that aren't still under 1.5 feet of snow. They're the first woodcock I've seen in this area this spring. Welcome back, friends. Be fruitful and multiply.

Friday Night Woodcock Mating Dance

This evening at dusk I witnessed more than a dozen truly spectacular aerial displays of woodcock dance and romance. Despite the light dusting of snow that still lingers on the Leelanau moraines surrounding our home, recently returned woodcock performed stunning spiral ascents minimally 150 feet high into the sky with breathtaking diving descents back to earth in clear view and within a 100 yards of my position on our home's veranda. Their beautiful peenting and soft twittering mating calls accented their aerial mating rituals more beautifully than any accompanying symphonic orchestra could ever achieve. This is one of nature's most spectacular mating rituals to ever see, and I had the priveledge to witness their beautiful romantic aerial dances from a front row seat! Before the end of April arrives, I expect to find and band a few broods of newly hatched woodcock chicks closeby our home. Tonight I was truly blessed to be allowed to witness their bedazzling mating flights--what stunning beauty!

Woodcock Return to NW Lower Michigan

They're back, even two days sooner than last year! At 8:15 pm this evening I heard the most beautiful singing of male woodcock arriving in NW Lower Michigan. I saw and heard a few males as they flew over our ridge singing to those that had already arrived on the aspen knoll on our property where the first males perennially make their arrival. No peenting calls yet, just soft, short whistle-like chorps and cheeps. My heart jumps with joy—-the woodcock have arrived!!!

Banding a Flying Woodcock Chick and Three One-Day-Old Chicks

This was truly an amazing, beautiful day afield banding woodcock. From the same regularly productive covert in Presque Isle County in NE Lower Michigan not 150 yards apart from one another I encountered one flying brood of three woodcock chicks, capturing and banding one and a brood of three one-day-old chicks (16 mm bill lengths)capturing and quickly banding all three very recently hatched chicks. See the attached photos of their nest with hatched eggs and the three young chicks. Clearly the hen that reared the flying brood of chicks steadfastly stayed on her nest during the harsh snowstorm that dumped 10+ inches on northern Michigan on April 20, and the hen that reared the one-day-old chicks apparently had to remate and renest after that storm.

Capturing a flying woodcock chick is extremely challenging to do; typically fewer than five are captured and banded by Michigan's 75-100 banders each year. In each of the last three years I've been very fortunate to have been able to encounter, capture, and safely band one flying chick. But, alas, I have only captured and banded one woodcock hen in the last five years, while other banders regularly do so. I am fairly confident that the woodcock hens that I encountered in this covert today were woodcock chicks that I banded in this same covert in previous years. I love this place--it's a paradise for woodcock to mate and rear their young! It's also a great place to hunt ruffed grouse and migrating woodcock in the fall.

Late April Snowstorm Will Threaten and/or Delay the Woodcock Hatch This Spring

A late April snowstorm that dumped 10+ inches of snow on northern lower Michigan will certainly threaten the survival of recently-hatched woodcock chicks and woodcock nests containing eggs. Very likely it will be necessary for many woodcock hens to remate and renest. Fortunately, this snowstorm, that is, if one can call this snowstorm to be an event having any good fortune, occurred while still early enough in their spring mating, nesting, and brooding season to allow hens to remate and renest, if necessary. This year's woodcock banding season in northern Michigan consequently will extend weeks beyond its normal season and last well into late May and early June. Woodcock hens are very hearty creatures and great mothers. I will not be surprised at all to see some nests and chicks survive this storm!

Check out these photos of the snowstorm taken of our property in Leelanau County in NW Lower Michigan.

Snowshoeing with Bruno on Our Property

My wife Christine, our 1.5+ year old GSP Bella, Bruno, and I love to snowshoe together on our property and throughout remote northern Michigan wilderness areas. We regularly snowshoe from 2-4 times a week and love the invigorating fresh air and exercise we get from this outdoor activity. We use traditional 10x36 inch Iverson snowshoes made with white ash from Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We used these very same snowshoes 15 years ago on one of our first dates before we got married, and I'm very happy to write that both the Iversons and our marriage have held up magnificently with only a nick or scratch here and there along the way.

Seek adventure in life. Live and explore. Have you lived 10,000 uniquely different days or the same day 10,000 times? I love to live, and I live to love.

They're Back! Woodcock Banding, Spring 2011

Hey, Birdhunters--the woodcock are back to northern Michigan! Last night while taking my GSPs Bruno and Bella out to perform their bedtime duties, I heard two woodcock males call out from the aspen stands on our property. That's March 17--the earliest I've ever heard them return to NW Lower Michigan. What joyous music to my ears that was! Stay tuned for new blog posts, photos, and videos of Bruno's woodcock-banding adventures later and throughout this spring!