FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] BBC Woodcock outing might make you blush !

["Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Bristol Bird Club's
Woodcock Outing

Saturady. March 4, (this weekend)
Shady Valley, TN     

5:00  p.m. Dinner at Raceway Restaurant
6: 30 p.m. Woodcock watching Orchard Bog 


The Bristol Bird Club has a great evening of woodcock watching in store for 
area birders.

Many of us will meet for dinner at 5 p.m. at the new location of the Raceway 
Restaurant where we've met for meals many times in the past.
That's the restaurant which was located in the S&S Store at the silo. Raceway 
Restaurant has moved directly across the street into the store building which 
has been closed for several years.  It faces U.S. 421 highway.  Enter the front 
of the store and the restaurant is in the back dinning room with hardwood 
floors and large glass windows. 

After dinner we will gather at 6:30 p.m. at the Orchard Bog Preserve of The 
Nature Conservancy which is located on Orchard Road.  A new twist this year 
will be that The Nature Conservancy's stone building at Orchard Bog will be 
open with heat, seats, and a modern bathroom.

BBC President Bill Grigsby will serve hot chocolate and cookies in the stone 
building after the American Woodcocks display for us.   The mating flights 
should get underway at dusk.  The conservancy stone building will be open the 
entire time.  If you have friends or family that don't want to stand out in the 
night air for 30 minutes they can enjoy the comfort of The Nature Conservancy's 
hospitality. 
The courtship behavior of the woodcocks is complex, enjoyable and thrilling.  
First the male woodcock enters the bog area "singing ground." After landing in 
a relatively open spot in the field at dusk, the male utters two calls, one 
right after the other. The first call is the "tuko" call, which is faint and 
can only be heard if you are quite close. The call that follows is the nasal 
"peent," which can be heard for some distance. As the male calls, he paces 
around in circles, so the peent call seems to rise and fall in volume.

After calling for a few minutes, the male lifts off of the ground and spirals 
upward into his towering sky dance. As he gains altitude, listen for a faint 
twittering sound made by the wind whistling past his three narrow outer primary 
feathers. Once he reaches the peak of flight, about as high as you can barely 
see in the darkening sky, he begins an undulating flight in a large circle. 
Then you will hear his chirping call. After he flies in circles for a while, 
the male will plummet back down to his little strutting ground. 

Once on the ground, he starts the whole display over again. While he is on the 
ground, females will often visit the singing male. Many males would advertise 
their wares, but these display grounds are a place for competition. 

The competition is a cackle flight; competitors chase each other while calling 
back and forth. This system results in what behaviorists call a lek. The lek is 
a place and process that determines who breeds. There still remains some 
question about how the lek operates in the case of woodcock, but regardless, it 
is a fascinating ritual to watch.

The following is report from a BBC field trip as published in THE EAGLE, March 
1991, page 3:

"It wasn't enough that three male woodcocks wre calling, flying and singing on 
the wing then our group turned out for the Saturday night, March 2 (1991) field 
trip.

"A female lured a male in an amazing 'courtship' display within 30 feet of our 
party!  We blushed.

"One male bagan calling and flying activities just at dark and two other males 
were active in the area.  A female flew within a few feet of the first male and 
he spread his wings, held them high and strutted towards the famale, constantly 
calling.  The female came to the male twice and finally she flew away to the 
underbrush after having let the male approach within nearly a foot.

"We were lucky that John Shumate brought a flashlight and that Lori had 
prepared cookies and Jean Powell made hot chocolate on the gas stove in her 
camper right on the spot."

You, too, can enjoy a wonderful X-rated evening with the Bristol Bird Club this 
weekend, March 4, 2006, at Orchard Bog in Shady Valley, Johnson Co., TN.  And, 
while you are there, come early and have dinner with us at 5 p.m. and get 
caught up with all your birding friends.

Let's go birding.....

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN


"It wasn't enough that three male woodcocks were calling,