This morning I decided to chase a woodcock. And there's no better place than quiet undisturbed Greenwood cemetery.
Figuring a good place to start around Battle hill, I had the fortune of running into old friends Rob Jett and his wife Robin . And all together we went birding. First since we started on Hemlock Ave we had to seek out the long winter resident Red Headed Woodpecker. It didn't take long. As soon as we arrived at the horse chestnut it favors,there it was high on its favorite perch. Afterwards we went a hunting for a timberdoodle.
We walked quite a bit without seeing a doodle. But as we near the Tweed plot, Rob stepped near a heavy leaf cluttered Mossy path and a flash took off, my miss as I was conversing with Robin. But as a secondary prize Rob finds me a perched Coopers hawk and favorites cool looking Cedar Waxwings by Dell water.
When I got home ,I thought helping out Dennis for his timberdooooodle walk tomorrow with the location today. While on errand for my mother and sister to 9th Street, and lunch, Dennis replies he s got a woodcock along dell path. Natch, I'm close by so why not chase a second time.
So three of us are going woodcock hunting. I quickly got my map to look for the spot . When I arrived , I parked in front of a big yew along Dell Avenue, left my family in the car to try my luck on Dell path. No luck. So , regretfully I got back in the car.i checked Dennis's text again and saw he sent a map. So, asking Google for directions, it turns out the spot was right where I parked! 😆. So out I go, walked 10 feet looked left at the yew and there i see a woodcock walking away. I beckoned my sister from the car but the bird disappeared. I assumed it flushed away.
We went uphill to look. Meanwhile my sister hears peenting call. It sounds like off to our left but I didn't want to leave my mother alone in the car . After a few minutes we head back down. But I hesitated and decided to look again behind the yew tree. Bingo! The woodcock is hunkered down in the leaf clutter. I got my sister on the bird ;after some effort she successfully located it and says it's a funny looking bird 😆.
So that's another story I can tell now: how I took off far only to find the woodcock was right under my nose all this time!
" Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot,the only home we've ever known"
--Carl Sagan
