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.
