Spring is a wonderful time for everyone, rivers and lakes opening up, trees leafing out, birds returning from the south, even a special smell in the air. In the spring when I was young, I would take a short three block walk down past the railroad tracks just before dark. On the other side of the tracks was a pasture full of cows held in by a barbed wire fence. In the pasture there were little patches of willows and alder brush. As the sun set, out in the pasture you could hear the woodcock begin their steady slow call from the willow brush. Meemp – meemp—meemp– meemp. Okay, that’s what I thought it sounded like back then. I was later told the correct description is “peenting”. Yes, sure, like that was so much better than “meemp”! After a few minutes, I could hear it jump into the air, its wings whistling. It would make a chirping sound as it spiraled up in a kind of tornado pattern until it almost disappeared from sight. Then the spectacular finish! It kind of hovered a while and then began to fall back to earth in a zig zag pattern, others described as a side-to-side dead leaf pattern, chirping the whole way down. It always kind of amazed me how that little character would land so very close to the same spot it had taken off from. Give it a minute or two to settle in and it was back going through the whole display again, a kind of encore performance. In the quickly disappearing light, I could make out the first couple of shows. After that, it was listening only. I remember crawling under the fence to try to get closer to the action. Each time it would jump into the air, I would head towards the place where I had thought it had taken off from. Each time it landed, it was closer to me. I didn’t have a flashlight with me, but I figured that I was within 15 to 20 feet at the closest. Man, other birds just sing to attract a female. This poor bird all but wore himself out for that gal. She better appreciate all that effort.

Read the rest of the Warren's column in our June issue...