By Ken M. Blomberg

Since the late 1970s, I have volunteered to run an annual spring American woodcock singing ground survey for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). And since the early 1980s, my wife Lynda, a.k.a. “the boss” has accompanied me – serving as my ears, since mine fail me at certain frequency levels. You see, displaying male woodcock’s vocal “peents” spring forth repeatedly as a  buzzy, nasal peent while on the ground between flights. Those “peents” are what we count during our spring surveys.

A bird call’s pitch is simply a human’s perception of the frequency,  or wavelength of a sound – referred to as either high or low. I can hear a ruffed grouse drumming within 40-acres, a mourning dove cooing a half-mile away, a turkey gobble at three-quarters of a mile, but beyond 100 yards, woodcock peenting escapes my range of hearing.

Many bird vocalizations are complicated, with a wide range of frequencies, and often have considerable variation in pitch. Measured in hertz, we humans can hear sounds that range from about 20 to about 17,000 hertz. According to scientists that measure such things, our beloved woodcock peent in the range of 4,000 hertz. And according to an audiologist at the local university, my 4,000 hertz hearing is gone. Luckily, the boss’s hearing range exceeds perfection.

Our instruction form describes the singing-ground survey as providing an index to the relative size of the woodcock breeding population in North America. It is the most important source of data used to guide federal, state and provincial woodcock programs. As part of their courtship behavior, male woodcock exhibit aerial and vocal displays each evening. They begin by giving calls described as “peents” shortly after sunset. From habitat types called singing-grounds, birds alternately “peent” and make flight songs.

Routes were selected years ago in areas known to contain suitable habitat for nesting female woodcock. Since females are for the most part silent and secretive in nature, researchers found that during spring males become extremely vocal and easily counted from roadside observers. Over the years, population trends have been recorded and become another tool in management decisions for this migratory upland game bird.

Wisconsin Route No. 065 became ours. Over the years, during the time period of April 25th through May 15th, the boss has listened for 2 minutes at 10 stops and 0.4 mile intervals – recording the number of different woodcock heard “peenting”. The number of birds heard has ranged from a low of 1 to nearly 10 during the 1990s. This year we heard 2 males. Last year we heard 5.

Mother Nature’s brutal April weather and historic snowfall may have played a part in our low count this week. Since 1984, I and good friend Mike Rutz of Bancroft have banded male woodcock on the Buena Vista grasslands. For the past several years we have hosted the UWSP Wildlife Society student chapter woodcock project on property Mike owns. With 4 mist nets set and a dozen students and volunteers at the ready, we heard zero – yes zero male woodcock displaying on our historic banding site. Our only conclusion can be the mid-April two-foot snowfall may have wiped out our returning resident birds.

That night, as I sat by the trucks on the driveway awaiting banding duties, one lone woodcock landed silently 30 feet from me on the driveway. She (he) sat for a few minutes then flew straight north. No one else saw her (him). Maybe she was looking for a male? Not one male was seen or heard sky dancing on our 40-acre study area. The path of destruction was from Eau Claire to the tip of Door County. However, good news were anecdotal accounts from southern counties reported singing males in large numbers.

As another bander friend Terry from Minnesota said:

“My guess is that the woodcock are mostly somewhere else. A few years ago northern Minnesota had heavy snow cover for most of April and the birds were stacked up just north of the Twin Cities, waiting for it to melt. They gave up and nested in central Minnesota. That was one of my best banding seasons, but those banders in Northern Minnesota mostly zero’d out on broods. Some birds I suspect still pushed the envelope and were caught in the snow and cold, never to be heard from again. Or the birds just waited it out and nested late, which is what I am seeing this year.”