Imagine we are designing a complete upland game bironer that moves with the seasons but drops into predictable habitat and stays a while. Our ideal bird must hold well for the dogs, flush fast, then fly like a scatterbrained bat. Taken together, that is a lot to ask for in our design. But we need not waste our time. Nature has already invented the American woodcock.
Woodcock are relatives of shorebirds such as sandpipers.
At some point in their history, birds that would become woodcock gave up communal life at the sea and began an evolutionary trek to a solitary existence in the uplands. There is something about woodcock that forces hunters to examine and admire each bird they take. Woodcock are migratory, an imperative dictated by their dietary staple of worms. The very reason why fine early and mid-fall woodcock hunting is found from Nova Scotia to southern Quebec, from my home state of Maine west into Minnesota. Come cold weather, the bulk of northern woodcock migrate to primary wintering grounds along the southern Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, with Louisiana accounting for the largest concentrations.