[Mnbird] woodcock?! This late?! But I believe so. Northern Anoka County, Oak Grove

[Pamela Freeman]

Last weekend I was traipsing and moseying in the woods and thickets around
my yard, it is really bigger than a typical yard, but, it isn't really big
enough to be called 'land' either, at least the parts of it that are
accessible when water is not stiff, that is to say, when it is liquid and
you would need to wade, swim, or slog in mud.
In any case, I was perusing the areas, on the lookout for buckthorn, which
is easy to spot this time of year, everything else (native) having shed its
leaves.
I was in an area that is more thicket than woods, and adjoins a thin band
of wet or moist thicket that adjoins a wet meadow and large marsh and ponds
and creek when something EXPLODED in front of me.
I had just enough time to note the shape and general coloring of the body,
and a rather long beak.
It had to be a woodcock or snipe, and given where it was, and what I did
get a look at, I am fairly certain it was a wood cock.
But, this time of year?
It was NOT a pheasant, though we certainly run across those, but no long
tail, wrong shape and size, and, that beak. It was very obvious and it was
long.. Slender and long.
It's takeoff was noisy, not just the dead leaves and stuff that it
displaced as it exploded upward and forward, but also the sound of its
wings.

I have not seen one here before, well, I have not seen one before, outside
of a book or a specimen in a museum or nature lab.
So, I was thrilled, but also skeptical, because of the late date.
Still. It was very much identifiable, or so it really did seem to me.
I paged through my Sibley, my Audubon, Peterson's. Nothing else looks even
vaguely like it.
I went to AllAboutBirds online.
Same.

Otherwise, I am seeing the usual late fall suspects these days, a turkey
now and then, or a few, which I still find exciting because it wasn't so
very long ago that one didn't see them wild here.
Pheasants, of course, I live near open fields and farm fields and
undeveloped land.
Lots of nuthatches, chickadees, juncos by the dozen, a handful of bluejays
who always sound like more than they are, crows, dulled goldfinches,
occasionally a hawk, at night, we sometimes still hear owls calling, a few
cardinals to provide a cheer of color if not their cheer call.

Pamela
Oak Grove
Northern Anoka County





- Pamela
Never give up on a dream just because of the length of time it will take to
accomplish it. The time will pass anyway. - Unknown

“There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.”
― Aldo Leopold
I am one who cannot.
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