V
There is one strange bird song that is half song and half dance that perhaps most of you may never be able to hear and see; but as it is worth going miles to hear, and nights of watching to witness, I am going to set it here as one of your outdoor tasks or feats: you must hear the mating song of the woodcock. I have described the song and the dance in “Roof and Meadow,” in the chapter called “One Flew East and One Flew West.” Mr. Bradford Torrey has an account of it in his “Clerk of the Woods,” in the chapter named “Woodcock Vespers.” To hear the song is a rare experience for the habitual watcher in the woods, but one that you might have the first April evening that you are abroad.
Go down to your nearest meadow—a meadow near a swampy piece of woods is best—and here, along the bank of the meadow stream, wait in the chilly twilight for the speank, speank, or the peent, peent, from the grass—the signal that the song is about to begin.