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.

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!

Video--Woodcock Banding, Spring 2010

My wife and camera/videowoman Christine, my GSP Bruno, and I went woodcock banding in Presque Isle County in NE Lower Michigan for only one hour this morning. Our banding adventure this warm, bright, beautiful, sunny morning was shortened due to a severely torn claw and pad that Bruno sustained to his front right paw. His injury required a visit to veterinarian Walter Bungard at the Atlanta Veterinary Clinic and a few days rest for recovery. The doc fixed Bruno up fine. But during that single hour aforest, we encountered one adult woodcock (likely a male) with no chicks and a woodcock hen and her brood of three flying fledglings. With the assistance of a tag alder branch that blocked the fledgling's attempted escape flight, I was fortunate to safely net the last of the fleeing hen's flying brood of three chicks (the second time I've had such an experience capturing a flying woodcock chick, the first time being in spring 2009 about one mile from our present banding site). Enjoy the video, which tells the rest of the story.

Video--Woodcock Banding, Spring 2010

In this photo my GSP Bruno is pointing a woodcock hen in Presque Isle County in NE Lower Michigan. I captured and banded the hen's two chicks, whose bills each measured 26 mm on May 10, 2010. The chicks'average bill length indicates that they are six days old here in this photo.

The very next day, Bruno and I encountered the same hen and chicks more than a quarter mile away from this location where we captured and banded them today. This video shows Bruno's long, staunch points as we search to discover their hiding spot.

Woodcock Banding, Spring 2010

I took this photo of my GSP Bruno from his perspective pointing a nesting woodcock hen that was located approximately seven yards from the tip of his nose. Click on the photo to expand the view.

Site: NE Lower Michigan, Presque Isle County

Guiding RGS Supporters on a Woodcock Banding Excursion Spring 2010

For five hours today, I guided Jackie and Jim, a married couple from Grand Traverse County, who made a very generous winning bid at the Ruffed Grouse Society Le Grand Traverse Chapter Fall 2009 Fund-Raising Banquet's Live Auction to accompany my German Shorthaired Pointer Bruno and me on a woodcock banding excursion in northern Michigan during spring 2010.

I originally had planned to take Jackie and Jim woodcock banding locally in NW Lower Michigan, but after my efforts last week scouting for hens and nests in customarily good woodcock mating-and-nesting habitats and finding none at all most likely due to the unseasonably dry weather conditions and forests we've had this spring, I decided to expand my woodcock scouting efforts to NE Lower Michigan, an area where my cabin is located and with which I have been familiar for decades.

On Monday, April 26th, Bruno and I succeeded in locating a hen woodcock and banding three very-well hidden chicks in Otsego County. I was encouraged by Monday's success and thought that the moist forest and soil conditions in north-central and northeastern lower Michigan were more favorable for woodcock to mate and for hens to nest and rear their young than in the drier forests of Benzie, Leelanau, and Grand Traverse counties. Monday evening, I returned to our home in NW Lower Michigan and reported via email to Jackie and Jim the day's banding successes along with a photo of one of the well-hidden chicks I had banded. I then proposed going to NE Lower Michigan for our banding excursion to which they happily agreed.

Precisely on time Thursday morning Bruno and I met Jackie and Jim in Traverse City at the Burger King along Grand View Boulevard. We exchanged greetings and then piled into my Tacoma 4-door 4x4 pickup truck. Our first stop was at the young aspen and tag alder habitat in Otsego County, where on Monday I had banded three woodcock chicks. I wanted to see if I could locate them again and perhaps capture and band the hen and possibly a fourth chick that I may have missed on Monday. We searched for an hour without any success and just as we were returning to my truck, Bruno snapped firmly on point just yards from the two-track trail off of which I had parked my truck.

I approached Bruno slowly, and from five yards behind him I followed his line of sight and scent to observe a nesting woodcock hen hidden superbly ten yards away beneath a small red pine tree. She was barely visible even to my well-trained eye. I motioned for Jackie and Jim to approach my position slowly and pointed where the nesting hen lay. Jim said that he thought he could discern the hen on her nest, but Jackie could not see the hen. She was definitely difficult to see. We left the hen undisturbed; I would return in a few days to check if her chicks had hatched.

I then drove Jackie and Jim to Montmorency County, where we checked a wet aspen stand and tag alder swamp which in years past had consistently produced woodcock hens and chicks. There we searched for an hour but surprisingly found no birds. Everyone was hungry after this search, so we went into the village of Atlanta and enjoyed some delicious soup and sandwiches at the Thunderbay Deli on North M-33.

After feasting on that refreshing lunch, I drove to another favorite woodcock banding area, but this one was farther north in Presque Isle County. Here we succeeded in locating two adult woodcock birds (very likely males), which Bruno pointed superbly. Unfortunately, they did not act as woodcock hens when flushed and despite our diligent searches we found no chicks. It was now late afternoon, and up to this point of our woodcock banding excursion we had encountered four adults woodcock with no birds and one nesting hen, which we made no attempt to capture and did not wish to disturb. Nonetheless, I was determined, with Bruno's assistance, to find and band a least one brood of woodcock chicks so that Jackie and Jim could experience an event that so few outdoors people ever have the opportunity to witness.

Finally, as we were walking along a two-track heading back to my truck to leave for Traverse City, I noticed a draw that headed away from the two-track and back into the woods. I suggested that this be our last attempt to locate chicks, and Jackie and Jim agreed. Just twenty five yards into the draw, Bruno squared staunchly on point (see the above photo that Jackie snapped). I instructed Jackie and Jim to stand where I was standing fifteen feet behind Bruno while I looped ahead of Bruno fifteen yards and walked back slowly towards them to see if we could locate a hen and chicks. My plan worked! A hen lifted from the ground with feet dangling loosely from her body and fluttered twenty yards past me before landing and feigning injury to draw me away from her likely nearby chicks. This was classic woodcock hen behavior. "It's a hen!" I announced to Jackie and Jim. "There are chicks nearby, so watch where you place your feet and please walk slowly. We don't want to step on and injure any chicks." Bruno stayed staunchly in place, but as a precautionary measure I had Jim leash him up and tie him to a nearby sappling. Almost instantly, I found a chick, and as I gently placed my hat over it, three other chicks raced away chirping loudly in alarm with their wings outstretched. All three little critters were fleeing fast! I quickly instructed Jackie to watch the chick that was under my hat as Jim raced to capture one of the chicks and I raced after the other two who fled together up a hill in an opposite direction. Whew, the action was fast! As I captured and placed the two chicks that I had pursued into my zippered nylon mesh holding bag, Jackie cried for assistance, "Mine's getting away!"

Jim added, "I cannot see mine any more. I've lost him!"

I went to help Jackie first. She smiled and explained that the chick had crept from under my hat, darted across the top of her boot, and disappeared immediately into the nearby brush. She was truly thrilled to have had such an exciting close encounter with this little woodcock chick. We searched but couldn't find the chick. We both then went to help Jim, who said that his chick "disappeared like magic." All three of us couldn't find that chick after a quick search.

So I quickly drew my banding equipment from my vest and explained to Jackie and Jim the need to band the two that I had caught, measure their bill length from which we can determine their age in days, and release the chicks back to the mother hen as quickly as possible so that she can recover and shelter them before dusk. See the photo that Jackie took of me banding one of the chicks. Its bill length measured 30 mm, which meant that the chick was eight days old and hatched on April 21.

Our drive home that evening was filled with enthusiastic conversation about today's thrilling woodcock banding experience. Jackie and Jim told me later that they called their children immediately upon arriving home to tell them of their great woodcock-banding adventures with Bruno and me.

Thank you, Jackie and Jim, for your very generous support of the Ruffed Grouse Society and for young forest habitats in which ruffed grouse and woodcock (along with 70 other species of wildlife)reside. Your support for RGS, conservation causes, young forests, and these marvelous game birds as well as the memories we share from our woodcock banding adventure today are priceless!

Woodcock Banding, Spring 2010

Greetings from northern Michigan. After an unproductive week trying to locate woodcock in prime woodcock mating and nesting habitats in Benzie County, where the weather and ground conditions this spring have been unseasonably very dry, I've decided to abandon my woodcock banding efforts in NW Lower Michigan and search for woodcock near my cabin in NE Lower Michigan. For an entire week, Bruno and I searched outstanding woodcock mating and nesting habitats in Benzie and Leelanau Counties and despite locating scores of ruffed grouse, we alarmingly couldn't find a single woodcock anywhere! My decision to search for and band woodcock in NE Lower Michigan immediately paid off. En route to my cabin in northern Montmorency County, my GSP Bruno and I stopped to search for woodcock at one of our favorite woodcock banding and hunting locations in Otsego County. Within minutes, Bruno located a woodcock hen with chicks along a cedar-and-tag-alder swamp. We were unable to net the hen, but we did locate and band two woodcock chicks, both of which were amazingly well hidden (see above photo of one well-hidden chick--the woodcock chick is located among the leaves and ferns directly below the stick that is positioned from the upper left corner of the photo frame to the lower right corner--look for the chick's bill and right eye--do you see the chick now? For a clearer view of the chick, click on the photo to enlarge.). In my four years of banding woodcock in northern Michigan, I've never before seen woodcock chicks that have used the ground leaf litter and cover for concealment as well as these two chicks we banded today. Despite our serious efforts to locate additional chicks (normally a woodcock hen lays four eggs and rears four chicks every spring), we left wondering whether we had overlooked equally-as-well-hidden chicks as the two we found and banded today. We plan to stop back in a few days to see if we can locate chicks from this brood that we may have missed on this banding excursion.

Woodcock Banding, Flyfishing, and Camping at Big Bay, MI

Scenic Big Bay is located a half-hour's drive NW of Marquette in Michigan's rugged Upper Peninsula. It was a favorite hangout for Henry Ford and his auto executives and also the setting for the 1959 American courtroom crime drama film Anatomy of a Murder, which was directed and produced by Otto Preminger and in which starred James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, George C. Scott, Arthur O'Connell, and Eve Arden. The film is based on the best-selling book having the same title that was written by Robert Traver, whose real-life yooper name was John D. Voelker, a retired Michigan Supreme Court Justice, former yooper district attorney, and passionate flyfisher who also penned Trout Madness and Trout Magic. Voelker based this book on an actual murder case for which he was the defense attorney. If you haven't seen the film or read any of these three books by Voelker, I highly encourage you to do so for Voelker writes splendid stories that are packed with as colorful characters from Michigan's U.P. as the region's geographic names are: Yellow Dog Plains, River, and Falls; Hairpin, Halfway Location, Squaw Beach, Big Eric's Bridge, Salmon Trout River and Bay, Hiawatha Water Trail, 40 Foot Falls, Big Pup and Little Pup Creeks, Lost Creek, Blind M35, Dodge City, Gold Mine Road, Dead River Bridge, Big Garlic River, Bulldog and Stag Lakes, Brown Deer Road, Pinnacle Falls, and Bushy Creek Truck Trail (WARNING: one better have a very good 4x4 truck, extra tires and radiators, jacks, shovels, winches and/or come-alongs and a good map to travel on certain parts of this bitchy trail). Several of the movie's scenes were filmed in Big Bay at the Thunder Bay Inn, the Lumberjack Tavern, which was the actual 1952 murder site on which much of Voelker's book is based, and Perkins Park, where the very last scenes of the movie occur. If you've seen the film and decide to visit Big Bay, you will recognize the Lumberjack Tavern and Perkins Park, but much of the original Thunder Bay Inn has been renovated to its original splendor and today offers fantastically-delicious menus and quaintly comfortable, cozy rooms for its guests.

My wife Christine invited me to accompany her to her second Becoming an Outdoor Woman(BOW)action-packed outdoor weekend. This year's BOW weekend was to take place in Big Bay in early June, and Christine was eagerly looking forward to attending it and seeing her outdoor womanfriends again. These BOW weekends and events are sponsored by Michigan's DNR and offer training in various outdoor skills and activities from experienced outdoor women instructors. I readily accepted my wife's invitation and decided that I'd take my GSP Bruno along for I knew from previous experience that there was a catch: Men are NOT allowed to stay at the the women's BOW park or to participate in their scheduled classes and events, such as flyfishing, kayaking, canoeing, GPS orienteering and map reading, trap shooting and archery. "Oh, c'mon ladies, can't you make exceptions for Bruno and me?" "Defintely not!" they responded. Oh, well, I guess Bruno and I will enjoy a men's weekend together woodcock banding in the regions's vast forests and wilderness areas and camping happily at Perkins Park on Lake Independence in Big Bay. Huh, we men shall have some fun outdoors, too!

And did we ever--all of us did! We spent a fantastic weekend of adventure exploring the local wilderness areas, forests, waterfalls, and amazingly gorgeous Lake Superior shorelines, prospecting and flyfishing for trout in the local streams, viewing all sorts of wildlife: cow moose with calves, wolves, deer with fawns, black bear, foxes, bald eagles and various other accipitors, ruffed grouse and sharp-tailed grouse, loads of Canada geese, ducks, and loons, plus bountiful, beautiful brook trout. But, alas, no woodcock! The forests were horribly dry for the region hadn't received any rain or snow in four weeks. Bruno and I searched in vain promising-looking woodcock nesting habitats, but locals told me that the woodcock were likely hugging the riverbanks further south where the forests were wetter.

The nighttime temperatures at Perkins Park dipped into the mid-thirties, but Bruno and I cuddled together to keep one another warm. We happily shared a male-bonding weekend together as did Christine with her female friends.

Michigan's Upper Peninsula may seem like a world and years away for many of you, but for us northern Michiganians, the U.P. is our paradise nearest heaven. Come visit Pure Michigan's Pure U.P. and while you're here, be sure to try our local pasties!

Woodcock Banding, Spring 2009

Please click on this photo to see an enlarged view of a woodcock chick that is from a brood of three chicks I banded in May 2009. The chick is attempting to flee after being released from my nylon mesh holding bag to its nearby mother who is calling to them. I regathered the three banded chicks, placed them under my hat for a while to calm them down, then released them calmed, unharmed and together to their mother who reclaimed them minutes after my departure. Their average bill length was 40 mm, which indicates that they are 13 days old and will begin to fly within a few days. Little wonder they were so energetic upon their initial release from my holding bag! Cute little buggers, aren't they?

Woodcock Banding, Spring 2008

It is amazing the things one discovers while in the woods woodcock banding. While banding with my friend and mentor Paul in Montmorency County on May 15, we observed very fresh bear sign and scat in the aspen stand his two English Setters and my GSP Bruno were searching. Soon we discovered a bear den that had been just recently vacated. Wildlife thrives throughout northern Michigan--it's an outdoors person's paradise, too!

Woodcock Banding, Spring 2007

Attached here are photos that I took (from top to bottom) of wild turkey (photo taken on May 11), woodcock (photo taken on May 17), and ruffed grouse (photo taken on May 23) nests while woodcock banding in NE Lower Michigan during spring 2007.

Woodcock Banding, Spring 2007

The photo above is of a 10-day-old woodcock chick (its bill length measured 34 mm) that was captured and banded in Montmorency County, NE Lower Michigan, on May 17, 2007. Note the developing primary wing feathers. This chick will become a fledgling and start flying in another 3.5-5 days.

Woodcock Banding, Spring 2007

Here is a photo that I took of a nesting woodcock hen in Montmorency County in NE Lower Michigan on May 10, 2007.

Do you see her? She's nesting just to the left of the base of the trunk of the small red pine tree in the center of the photo.

Click on the photo to enlarge the view.