American Woodcock

Probably no other game bird commands such respect among sportsmen, or is so sought after on either side of the Atlantic as woodcock. In France, where the larger European species have been christened “golden queens of the woods,” woodcock shooting is almost a religion. In Britain, until well into the eighteenth century, people believed the same bird, which migrates south from Scandinavia in winter, spent the summer on the moon (an argument put forward at the time by a body of academics who reasoned that, when most woodcock disappeared in March and April, they flew to the moon, spending three months enjoying the lunar landscape and four months travelling there and back). The American name for its smaller but almost identical cousin, the wood elf or timber doodle, charmingly encapsulates this mysterious little bird’s elusive behavior.