Sky Dance of the Woodcock: The Habits and Habitats of a Strange Little Bird

I’ve seen and heard countless things that I never would have experienced had I not gotten into birding. One of the most amazing – fantastical, really – is the “sky dance” of the American Woodcock. First, the un-bird-like peent! rings out. Shortly thereafter, you catch a glimpse of a bird launching into the fading twilight. Higher it goes. And then the sound starts to filter down. Oh, what a sound, a series of twitters that you would not believe possible. Then the bird returns to earth, to start the performance all over again. But besides this performance, the woodcock was a mystery to me. Greg Hoch’s wonderful, little life history, Sky Dance of the Woodcock: The Habits and Habitats of a Strange Little Bird, rectified that.

Hoch details the life of the American Woodcock, focusing particularly on its quirky anatomy and behaviors, habitat requirements, migration, threats, and, of course, the sky dance. This sort of study of one species is called a “natural history”, and this one is not typical. Such books are normally intended as a reference, a compendium of all that is known about the species. Numbers, graphs, and charts usually figure heavily. Hoch largely eschews that. Ok, there are a few charts, he couldn’t fully avoid them, but make no mistake, this is more a species account for the average person interested in woodcocks. In other words, birders and hunters.

The author’s explicitly stated goals are:

• “to introduce the reader to the world of the American woodcock” and get you to go out and watch a sky dance
• to give an understanding of habitat management, specifically for woodcock and more generally for all wildlife
• to show how thoughtful forestry practices can benefit wildlife

The first goal is unsurprising – the book is named after the sky dance, after all. But the other two are not what you may be expecting. Throughout the book, Hoch shows how many of the aspects of woodcocks’ lives are affected by forestry practices. Threats are just one example. As you might anticipate, habitat loss is identified as the primary threat. But the solution may be quite surprising – cutting trees. And not just some cutting, but clear cutting. This may produce an “eyesore”, but this apparently devastated area will soon progress to early- and mid-successional forests that woodcock depend on. But wildlife managers have found that it’s a struggle to do such cutting because most people have been conditioned to believe that clearcutting is bad. However, Hoch argues that we need to manage for all types of forest:

We can argue that not all tree harvesting is bad. When done carefully and thoughtfully, it can be very beneficial to a number of wildlife species. Some species are dependent on it. As a side benefit, it can be equally as beneficial to local economies.

The author hopes to “demonstrate that people can manage habitats productively and successfully and that tools such as chain saws and axes aren’t necessarily destructive.”

This natural history also stands out in its readability. Woodcocks are fun birds to watch, it seems the author felt that reading about them should be enjoyable as well. While there are plenty of facts and research results given, the author does not just regurgitate that information. He also includes plenty of personal experiences and anecdotes, giving the reader both knowledge of the bird and an idea of what it’s like to seek it out and study it. Further livening up the reading is the liberal use of quotes. These are well-chosen and wide-ranging – as can be inferred from the extensive, 19-page bibliography – from a variety of authors. They are helpfully called out through indentation and a slightly smaller font size.

This is not a visual book. Thirteen black-and-white photographs round out the text, giving you some idea of what woodcock chicks, nest, and habitat look like. So do not buy this book expecting lots of illustrations.

Recommendation

“Few species can capture the imagination as well as the woodcock,” Hoch writes here. You will get no argument from me. If you’d like to find out why, Sky Dance of the Woodcock may be the best way to do so.