Eurasian woodcock

Voice

In the roding display over the wood the male gives a series of three or four low grunting orrt orrt orrt notes followed by a sharp high tsiwick. Heard from March to July, in the last twenty minutes before dark and again at first light; otherwise the species is silent.

Identification

Heavy and thickset, with short legs, broad rounded wings and a long straight bill. The plumage is dead-leaf marbled in rufous, black and grey, and the crown is barred crosswise rather than striped lengthways; the large eye sits high and far back. In flight it moves slowly and owl-like with the bill angled down; summer and winter plumages are alike.

Confusion species

Snipe only causes trouble in a poor flight view: it is far smaller and slimmer, with lengthwise crown stripes, pointed wings and a fast zigzag escape with a rasping call. Woodcock is bigger, rustier and much broader-winged, and flies off silently and slowly, weaving low between the trunks.

Habitat

Damp broadleaved and mixed woodland with deep leaf litter, open understorey and wet patches: alder carr, ditches and small streams. It rests on the woodland floor by day and flies out at dusk to open damp grassland to probe for earthworms. In hard weather it shifts to wood edges and hedgerows.

Range and movements

Breeds across northern, central and eastern Europe and in mountains further south; in the Netherlands a scarce breeder of wooded sandy soils. In the winter half of the year large numbers arrive from Scandinavia and Russia. Iberia is one of Europe's key wintering areas, with many birds in Galicia, the Cantabrian woods and the dehesas.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

From mid-March to May, stand at a clearing or a junction of wide rides twenty minutes before sunset and watch against the bright sky, when roding males pass on slow deliberate wingbeats. In autumn you find day birds by walking slowly through damp, leaf-deep woodland.

Conservation status

Still numerous globally but declining in western Europe through the drying and fragmentation of woodland, disturbance and very heavy hunting pressure in the wintering range. The Netherlands holds only a small breeding population, sensitive to recreation during the breeding season. Severe frosts can also cause heavy local mortality.