Trying to capture the woodcock’s spring sky dance

A turkey gobbled from less than 100 yards away. Nothing triggered the gobbling. No hen yelps, no crow caws, no owl hoots, no geese honking, no tractors starting – nothing.

On any quiet evening with little wind, we hear a few faint gobbles. This guy just kept hammering away for over 10 minutes, three to four times a minute.

A turkey gobbling close by provides some of the best spring sounds in the country side.

Normally a good problem. He started gobbling in the last ten minutes of daylight. A youth hunter within 300 yards still birdless with ten minutes to go would have filled their tag within five minutes. This turkey was hot. He saw me standing in the open and he just kept gobbling.

But I wasn’t turkey hunting. I was taking 20 minutes to try and get a male woodcock on video doing his spring sky dancing. They start the sky dance just before dark and continue into the darkness until they attract a mate. They start by peenting, essentially making a nasally noise that sounds just like I spelled it – peent. The peent can be heard from a couple hundred yards away.

Right now, you might be asking yourself if I hit my head and flew over the woodcock’s nest. After all, a woodcock is about the size of a robin and they eat a lot of the same things – worms. One turkey provides the same amount of meat that a decade of hunting woodcock provides. Turkey tastes like turkey, woodcock taste like . . . very good, if you cook them right. If you don’t, they make liver taste good. And if you start yakking on about how you think liver taste great – the rest of us will know who really fell and hit their head – just say’n. Woodcock make a second vocalization in spring – a tuko – heard from only 10 yards away. Gobbling within a hundred yards drowns out all this. By the time Ol’ Tom Turkey stopped gobbling, pitch blackness settled in. So much for video.

A woodcock did start peenting close to me and I walked close enough to hear the tuko. I found the woodcock on the ground with a flashlight just when the ground display stopped and the sky dance started. If you decide to take a half hour to go see this, don’t move the flashlight from the spot the woodcock takes off from.

The woodcock flies up into the sky in a spiral pattern with a chirpy twittering sound made from their wings. The sound gives the woodcock one of its nicknames – “twitter bird.”

The spiral pattern narrows the higher he flies. Suddenly the woodcock drops from the sky, kind of like a WWII fighter plane after the pilot bailed out. Just above the ground the woodcock breaks the dive and lands usually in exactly the same spot it took flight from. Don’t move the flashlight.

They are an interesting gamebird. Once thought of as not worthy by a lot of bird hunters. But the more you learn the more you respect them. Then you take the time to learn to prepare them properly.

All the recipes’ authors talk about their favorite ingredients. But the key to cooking woodcock well, is not cooking beyond medium and I like them just under. Salt and pepper are the only seasonings you need.

Roast woodcock requires two birds per adult and should be plucked – they pluck easy. Poppers, crostini toast, or an hors d’oeuvre in cream bourbon sauce – you cook the woodcock no farther than medium. The cooking time is short.

Whole roasted woodcock is a special event meal. Serve it with a good red wine. Make a sauce, wild rice stuffing with cranberries and walnuts – I cook that separately. I like cranberry jelly, cranberry liquor, chicken stock and some red wine vinegar for the base of my sauce, but others like apple or blackberry jelly. After the sauce reduces, I smooth it out with some rendered bacon fat. I stuff the cavities with the stuffing when I’m resting the woodcock for presentation. Make the sauce to your taste. And pour some melted butter over them just before you put them into the oven. I don’t brown those little birds – it takes them past medium.

I don’t have any woodcock in the freezer from last fall. Instead, I get to enjoy their spring displays of aerobatic flight. Take a half hour and enjoy a wonder of spring.

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