Unless you’re a hunter or live in the boonies, it’s unusual to spot more than one game bird species on a typical outing. Today, in addition to the ever present Canada SkyCarp, I bagged (figuratively) at least six American Woodcocks and a Ring-necked Pheasant.
The Am. Woodcocks were not a surprise. Males of the species are have just begun their courtship flight rituals — or sky dance – over semi-open fields and pastures. I banked on seeing them tonight at Rush Oak Openings, a known spot just down the road.
My husband and I dragged our two young boys out of the car and walked through the darkening woods toward open fields. The kids decided we were the enemy, so they hung back, hid behind trees, and ‘shot’ at us with invisible semi-automatic nerf guns. When we looked back, they’d duck behind a log, or dive into the dirt and flatten on the ground. Their spy moves totally rocked, but we survived to bird again.
We trekked through crunchy fields, which were recovering from a controlled burn, and waited for sunset. Soon after the sky darkened, each of the fields around us perked up with hushed peent…peent…peents.
Soon, the peenting intensified, and woodocks took to the sky and twittered here, there, and everywhere before disappearing into the black of night. Their sky dance culminated with a precipitous drop back into some undisclosed location to peent all over again.
The forecast calls for a few snowstorms this week, but the woodcocks assure me that there’s no going back to winter.
***
Earlier in the day, I was out on a photo assignment for a digital photography club. I put miles and miles under the wheels in search of a decent subject of “architechtural interest” but Doran Road in northeastern Livingston County kept calling to me, as it always does.
Located on the Niagara escarpment in full view of the Finger Lakes, there’s something about the quiet road, the panoramic views, and the wildness of the raptors that hunt here (hawks, owls, shrikes, and kestrels) that draws me.
A little devil on my shoulder questioned why I would spend the only single hour I had to myself on this sunny day denying myself the right to soak in great views and, possibly, some avian creature of notable interest. It was too early for the raptor rapture at this site, but its wildness gives the sense I can run into anything. The angel on my other shoulder had no chance.
I abandoned my assignment and headed south to Lima.
My instincts were right. Not a quarter mile before my destination at the corner of Townline and Doran Roads, a Ring-necked Pheasant scurried down from the bank, across the road, and scuttled back up the bank on the other side.
Views were great: I saw the bird’s reddish brown plumage, scarlet wattle, and a thick ring of white around his neck.
I fumbled for my camera, but in a flash the bird was gone. I’d never seen pheasants here, nor had I heard any reports of any. A quick check in the NY Breeding Bird Atlas, though, shows it breeds in this area.
Hours later I’d see the woodcocks and round out a Three-Gamebird Day. The pheasant, however, was a total surprise, a great addition to my year list, and a reminder that its the path less traveled that makes all the difference.
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