Woodcock, Woodhen, and Woodchicks - March through June

This post takes us from eggs ... laid early, surviving iffily through snow, rain, coyotes, and people ... and on to heroic, noble success.

Yesterday, April 28, monitoring an endangered wetland plant, we flushed a woodhen and four woodchicks. The fledgling four flew tolerably well compared to the mom who could barely, laboriously, hover - slowly heading in a different direction. Of course, the woodhen was luring us away from her chicks.

We were just another challenge she had to negotiate. Her nest, like all woodhen nests, had been on the ground. She and the eggs are camouflaged to disappear into the background, when foxes or coyotes come by.

To give their chicks an early start, they're among the first migrants to return and nest each spring. Often the hens and their nests get snowed on. See photos, below. Few people see them, other than in photos like this, though they're one of the commonest nesting birds of the Sommes. Mostly nocturnal. 

On April 3rd, as we cut brush, we scared a hen off a nest with those four eggs shown above. We marked its place, mentally, so we could avoid it and do our work elsewhere.

But if you scare a hen off her nest, especially early in the season, she may choose to abandon the eggs. Many nests also get destroyed by fire or predators. If her first nest fails, she'll start another. Next day, I brought binoculars so I could check from a distance without disturbing her again. But no. She was gone. We felt bad about that.

Yet 60 yards away, that same disappointing day, I happened across another nest, by another hen, which had just three eggs in it: 

This second nest was in prairie grass. A woodhen lays a total of four eggs in her nest - one per day - and begins to incubate when the fourth is laid. She wants the four to hatch at the same time, so her precocial chicks can head off with her right away. They're able to walk and help feed themselves when they hatch. She should lay her last egg and begin incubating on April 5th. I memorized her position so I could try to document her story from a distance.

Consider this "Where's Waldo photo" from my return on April 5th, of the woodhen sitting on this nest:

Can you find her? I can assure you that's she's in this photo. I was looking at her when I took it, hoping to make a point about camouflage in this post. In the photo, I can't find her, despite looking very hard. I kept my distance. 

I returned on April 8th, with a longer lens. Here she is again; can you find her now? I can.

Try looking toward the right, about a third of the way up the photo, and about two-thirds of the way to the right. You would not likely see her if you were just walking along. A zoomed-in photo is below:

On the 13th day, a light snow came.

This test did not faze her.

She inspires: Skilled. Faithful. Strong. Generous. Hardy. Devoted. Capable. Resilient. 

If you were hiking off trail, you wouldn't see her until too late. If you don't have some crucial steward work, it's best to stay on the paths. Of course, the deer stomp around. The bison once did. But there are a small number of acres of woodcock habitat left - and millions of human feet, so close.

Through rain and snow, thunderstorms, cold, and wind - for those four eggs to hatch takes 20 to 21 days. 

By April 14th, this snow had melted, and in another part of the preserve, another woodhen fluttering up heavily made me freeze my feet - to discover the four fuzzballs below:

The one in the middle got tipped over when the woodhen burst up. It stayed frozen, upside down. Powerful instincts protect them. But these chicks being here on the 14th meant that the hen had to have started incubating her clutch of eggs by March 25th. The chicks fledge (meaning they can fly) 14 days after hatching. They'll be relatively safe then. 

But, for the nest I was monitoring, on April 16 three more inches of snow were predicted, and they came.

As I approached the nest, passing ten feet away were the fresh tracks of a coyote, perhaps an hour earlier.

But sure enough, neither snow nor coyote nor I fazed that woodhen. There she is:

This later-nesting hen is nearly buried, but, bless her, she perseveres. Her eggs stay warm again. I wonder, how often does she have to eat? For how long could she stay away from those precious eggs? With an incubation time of 20 days, she has eight days left until they hatch. (Yesterday's four fluffballs we can suppose are snuggled under their mom in this snow.)  

Then other demands on my time lured me away. I never saw her on her nest again. 

But she or one of her sisters successfully fledged the four chicks we saw yesterday. It's an accomplishment any woodhen could be proud of. She's still tending them and trying to lure me away. By mid June, they'll be on their own, and she'll finally, truly, be an empty-nester, so to speak. 

We stewards can also be proud of our work to restore their habitat. We can also treasure the intimate relationship we've come to have with them, coming across eggs and chicks as we do our work, many times every year in Somme Prairie Grove. And in recent years, especially gratifyingly, thanks to woodland restoration under way there, they've also returned to breed and protect eggs and chicks in Somme Woods.

More about Somme's woodcocks is at http://woodsandprairie.blogspot.com/2018/04/dont-hurt-woodcocks.html. For important reasons not to go look for birds' nests, see Egg Blog

Two final tidbits:

• Every spring in the burned areas, there seem to be woodcock holes in every square foot of the open savanna. But none visible in the woods or unburned areas. Worms, their main food, must be especially available in the burned grasslands. On the rare occasions I've seen these birds feeding, their bills go up and down so fast they look like sewing machines. 
• Woodhens winter in southern U.S. "where they're a popular game bird" - which means that people shoot them for pleasure. Hunting and gathering are part of our heritage. We have yet to well work out what that means here today. 

Endnotes

Endnote 1: woodhen?

Is it appropriate to call a female woodcock a woodhen? According to the dictionary, no. She's just a "hen woodcock." But I'm sorry, a "cock" is a male, and times have changed. Woodcock males provide nothing to the family beyond sperm and pizazz (in their fancy nuptial flights and serenading), so they're hardly worthy of foisting their macho names on the females.

The hen on her nest thinks about her chicks, not him!
If you notice her before she flies and approach cautiously, she'll sit tight.
You can slowly photograph her from one foot away.

Endnote 2: dates?

Some of these photos and experiences are from various years. The snow photos are from 2022. 

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Eriko Kojima, Christos Economou and Rebeccah Hartz for proofing.