Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 01:11:37 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Shireen Gonzaga Subject: Re: Timberdoodle MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Wow! What a neat bird to have in your yard! Fred Burggraf said: > One question here---does anyone know how this bird > actually opens a fully probed beak to grab on to the worm? Consumed with curiosity about your question, I did a little foraging on Google, and came up with this: From http://www.gov.ns.ca/natr/wildlife/wns/wns7e.htm " Woodcock feed primarily on earthworms, so they require soft, moist soils for probing with their bills. Their long and slender bills have flexible tips that can open underground to grab worms." This woodcock apparently does not watch the Weather Channel. He was darned lucky to find your yard. With the warming & rain we had today, and the snow you cleared, the ground was soft and moist enough for the bird to feed. I bet the earthworms were not amused. Mr. Timber Doodle has probably exhausted all the worms in that patch of soil. If you shovel out another patch of soil for him, maybe he'll be grateful enough to name a chick after you. Interestingly, most Google hits on "probing" described wetland habitats for shorebird probing-type feeding. That really makes me appreciate how woodcock have adapted that particular feeding method to land habitats. BTW, this website has a nice overview of woodcock: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/whdab/B199.html Timberdoodle- dooo, y'all !!! ;-) - shireen Shireen Gonzaga Baltimore, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================