Thanks Jay (and Felicia Lovelett too),

Very cool! I think it is a woodcock.  I listened to some samples at the 
Cornell Library of Sound and seems like a pretty good match. Not very 
woodcock friendly in my neighborhood but maybe one put down to rest 
after migrating last night. There is also one spot about 150 yds from my 
house that a woodcock might find to his temporary liking and launch a 
few practice displays. I found a snipe in my yard spring of '06 so 
anything is possible.

Recording might actually have occurred at 4:52 AM and not 3:52.  I had a 
small glitch downloading some sound files. 4:52 would put the call 
closer to dawn and a possible display flight. I have never read anything 
that suggests woodcocks call in actual migration flight. Thanks for 
clearing up the mystery, this would have bugged me for a while.

Andy Martin

Jay K wrote:
> Andy,
>
> Sounds a lot like a Woodcock display to me.
>
> Jay Keller
>
> -----Original Message-----
>   
>> From: Andy Martin <>
>> Sent: Mar 3, 2008 6:08 PM
>> To: 
>> Subject: [MDOSPREY] night recording over Gaithersburg, 3/3/08
>>
>> With winds light and out of south last night/early morning, I put my 
>> microphone out from 11:30 pm to 6 am to check for nocturnal flight 
>> calls. Pretty sparse but did get a couple Ring-billed Gulls, a Tundra 
>> Swan, a Killdeer and 3 possible Song Sparrows.  Also picked up a strange 
>> fast twitter which I posted at
>> http://nightmigrants.com/_mgxroot/page_10824.html
>> Have no idea what it might be.  Maybe some local resident disturbed off 
>> the roost.
>>
>> Andy Martin
>> Gaithersburg
>>
>>