The King of SIlly: Meet the Woodcock

Some animals are bold and majestic. Other look frightening. Some are exquisitely graceful. Still other are comfortably homely (my favourite category) like hedgehogs.

And then there’s the woodcock. The King of Silly. At first glance, the woodcock might not look particularly silly. It is a smallish brownish bird with (admittedly) an oddly long beak, but nothing screams silly. There are many much sillier looking birds in the world. (Maybe I’ll write about silly-looking birds next.)

But don’t be fooled. The woodcock is deeply silly. Even a quick review of its nicknames prove that generations of outdoorsy people have unanimously agreed that the woodcock is silly enough to deserve an abundance of silly nicknames. Its nicknames include timberdoodle, swamp bat, mudbat, mudsnipe, brush snipe, big-eye, fiddle squeak, night partridge (not so silly), labrador twister, bogsucker, and hokumpoke.

So what makes this little bird so silly? It’s hard to know where to begin, so we’ll begin with the basic shape of the woodcock.

The image above isn’t 100% accurate. Yes, it is a real picture of a woodcock, but it shows the woodcock from a flattering angle. The truth is, woodcock bodies are very, very round and their beaks are very, very long—almost as long as their very round bodies. It’s like a Kawaii cutey come to life!

The little guy above looks like a cinnamon bun with a pair of chopsticks poked in. And those itsy-bitsy legs! Who designed those? We’ll get to the legs later, but first let’s talk about what happens when the cinnamon bun opens its ridiculously long beak.

Above is an image of a male woodcock in the middle of his mating call. Before you play the mating call video below, I want you to imagine the sound. Maybe even try a few different calls yourself. It is a beautiful melody? A chirp? A tweeting? Think about it. Remember, this call is meant to attractive a lady.

Now play the video.

Who stepped on the rubber duck?!

Naturalists have labelled this noise peent. Which seems a bit lame. It’s more of a squink! I particularly love the pause between squinks. So well timed.

Here’s the same video, but with a little added pizzazz.

But the squink isn’t all that makes woodcocks silly.

Remember those little legs? Even when woodcocks do a normal walk, they look silly. The proportions are all wrong.

But woodcocks don’t do normal. This is how they cross a road. Make sure you have your sound on.

I mean, what?! This is real my friends. Without the music, of course. They aren’t actually dancing to the beat. But this is truly how woodcocks cross a road. Notice how the bird’s head doesn’t move, just its body. So groovy.

If you like this sort of thing, there is a whole section of the internet dedicated to funky woodcocks walks, which is not a sentence I ever thought I’d write. Here’s another one for you.

Of course, this makes me think of Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks, which I’ll let you search up on your own.

But back to science. Why does the woodcock bob and rock while walking? Why does it walk so slowly? To be clear, they don’t bob and rock all the time, just at particularly times, and often while crossing a road. Often while foraging for worms.

Not surprisingly, there’s lots of theories.

One theory says the rocking rouses lazy earthworms. By rocking while walking, the woodcock pressures the ground which makes worms and bugs wiggle nervously. The woodcock feels their motion, and voila! Dinner.

I don’t buy this. If you wanted to frighten earthworms, wouldn’t you stomp, not rock gently back and forth?

Another theory is even stranger but strangely probably more true: the rocking makes woodcocks more visible in mildly threatening situations, and that is a good thing. What?! That’s just goofy, right? Surely you’d want to be less visible in any sort of threatening situation, mild or otherwise.

Let me explain how the theory works. In seriously threatening situations, the woodcock immediately escapes by bursting into the air and flying away. (Despite their fat bodies, woodcocks are agile flyers.) However, maybe the woodcock is hungry and doesn’t really want to fly away. Maybe it isn’t 100% sure there actually is a predator in the bush. In which case, the rocking walk is a signal to any would-be, maybe-there predators that they’ve been spotted. It says: “I see you. I think. I’m not sure. Doesn’t matter. Because if you pounce, I’ll just fly off. You’ve lost your advantage my not-so-friendly friend, so don’t waste your energy or mine. I’ve got worms to eat.”

I like this theory more, but I’m still not 100% convinced. For starters, the woodcock has incredible camouflage. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to stay still and assess the situation? Does it really need to wiggle? Is it mocking the would-be predator?

Do you have any theories?

While we might never know why the woodcock does a silly strut, I think we can agree the world is better for it.

And to prove it, I have one final incredibly cute video:

Want to know more?

Some extra reading:

Various theories about the woodcock strut: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2021/02/28/why-do-woodcocks-rock-when-they-rock/

A good overview of all things woodcock. Visit the SOUNDS page for some extra delight: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Woodcock/overview