Backyard 2/26--American Woodcock

 I went out a little after 6 this evening to move the cars--I feel like I'm working in a parking lot sometimes--when, just as I was about to get into my car, I heard "peent!" from the detention basin next to the house. American Woodcock! I walked over there and heard it again and again and one more time. I walked down--the basin, aside from a small pool near the street is almost always dry--and hoped the woodcock would take flight, but it never did and shut up after 4 nasal calls. 

One of the reasons we bought this house is because of that basin--no neighbors either in back (the Whiting WMA) or on the side of the house. In the summer, of course, the whip-poor-will(s) take up residence. Bluebirds live there and the turkeys nest somewhere in the denser growth of the basin. All in all, quite a nice little spot to have next door if you're a birder. 

It isn't the first time we've had a woodcock in the backyard. (I consider the basin part of our backyard, though we don't own it. It's actually unclear who does own it.) A few years ago, in mid-winter, we had one sitting on the edge of the lawn where the underbrush starts. I remember seeing it from the back window and shouting, "Shari, come here!" She thought I was having a heart attack. Two days later it snowed heavily, and the woodcock was in a snow shelter that formed around some low hanging branches on a bent pine tree, answering Shari's question of "Where do they go when it snows?"