Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 12:53:41 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Fred Burggraf Subject: Timberdoodle! Comments: cc: Kburggraf@aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The extreme weather and persistent snow cover has made this a very interesting week in my yard and at the feeders. Today was no exception. Today at mid-morning a most unlikely yard bird appeared. About 30 feet from my front door, in a strip of open soil (where the snow finally gave way to mud), was an American Woodcock. And he was busy. I watched for 10 minutes or so as he worked and worked the mud, bringing up earthworms at the rate of 4-5 per minute. I was amazed at how easily he probed the earth; it's as if his bill were a hot knife penetrating butter. As he fed, he'd probe just halfway and quickly over an area. Then he'd pause, as if he was smelling or sensing a worm underneath. At that point the bill would go fully in, usually to emerge with a worm. In a few cases the worm resisted, and the woodcock would be leaning back, stretching the hapless worm between its hold on the soil and the tip of the bill. This occurred several times; the woodcock outlasted the worm consistently. One question here---does anyone know how this bird actually opens a fully probed beak to grab on to the worm? In years past, we've often heard woodcock peeenting in early spring near our home, but we've never had one actually feeding in the yard and in full daylight. How odd to see this bird right next to white throats and juncos. Other birds have been attracted to any patch of grass or soil. I cleared a small area in the back yard just to see what might drop in. The little patch is nearly always busy with something, including a flock of robins, the ubiquitous Hermit Thrushes, up to three thrashers and a few flickers. Not bad for just a few minutes of shoveling. Fred Burggraf fburggraf@aol.com Dentsville (southern Charles Co.) ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================