Titmice and chickadees are beginning their spring calls. The days are noticeably longer and when I get home from work it is still light. In March the woodcock returns from migration. I look in protected sunny places, along the house foundation and the edge of the woods. Often our neighbors have the first sighting and, knowing that I keep a journal, they tell me what they've seen.
American woodcocks run along the ground with a headlong movement.
With long thin beaks, they search in the softened damp soil for earthworms and insect larvae. They nest among dead leaves or under bushes. They live in moist deciduous woodland and thickets near open fields. With colours adapted for the forest floor, woodcocks are nearly invisible. In their elaborate mating ritual, the male spirals to a great height, circles and, calling as he descends, plummets to the earth.