American woodcock
Scolopax minor
Identification Tips:
- Dumpy, short-legged, short-tailed, rounded-winged shorebird
- Explosive takeoff when flushed, wings make twittering sound in flight
- Very long bill
- Very large, dark eye set high in head
- Buff-brown head, breast and belly buff to pale cinnamon
- Black nape crossed by pale lines
- Dark eyeline and auricular stripe
- Gray-brown back, with black and chestnut feathering interspersed
between two pale Vs
- Upperwings reddish-brown; underwings brown, with rusty wing linings
- Rusty rump; dark rectrices tipped gray/white
- Found in woodlands and shrubby fields
- Sexes similar
- Juvenile similar to adult
Similar species:
Common Snipe is more slender and browner, without the crossbars
on nape. In flight, the Common Snipe has much more pointed
wings.