A little brother to the bear, and other animal studies

by William J. Long

When the autumn comes you will notice another suggestion of the unknown plover in Whitooweek. Just as you look confidently for the plover's arrival in the first heavy northeaster after August 20, so the first autumn moon that is obscured by heavy fog will surely bring the woodcock back to his accustomed haunts again. But why he should wait for a full moon, and then for a chill mist to cover it, before beginning his southern flight is one of the mysteries. Unlike the plovers that come by hundreds, and whose eerie cry, shrilling above the roar of the storm and the rush of rain, brings you out of your bed at midnight to thrill and listen and thrill again, Whitooweek slips in silent and solitary; and you go out in the morning, as to an appointment, and find him sleeping quietly just where you expected him to be.

With the first autumn flight another curious habit comes out, namely, that Whitooweek has a fondness for certain spots, not for any food or protection they give him, but evidently from long association, as a child loves certain unkempt corners of an upland pasture above twenty other more beautiful spots that one would expect him to like better. Moreover, the scattered birds, in some unknown way, seem to keep account of the place, as if it were an inn, and so long as they remain in the neighborhood will often keep this one particular spot filled to its full complement.

Some three miles north of where I write there is a certain small patch of tall open woods that a few hunters have known and tended for years, while others passed by carelessly, for it is the least likely looking spot for game in the whole region. Yet if there is but a single woodcock in all Fairfield County, in these days of many hunters and few birds, the chances are that he will be there; and if you do not find one there on the first morning after a promising spell of weather, you may be almost certain that the flight is not yet on, or has passed you by. Several times after flushing a solitary woodcock in this spot I have gone over the whole place to find some reason for Whitooweek's strange fancy; but all in vain. The ground is open and stony, with hardly a fern or root or grass tuft to shelter even a woodcock; and look as closely as you will you can find no boring or sign of Whitooweek's feeding. From all external appearances it is the last spot where you would expect to find such a bird, and there are excellent covers close at hand; yet here is where Whitooweek loves to lie during the day, and to this spot he will return as long as there are any woodcock left. Hunters may harry the spot to-day and kill the few rare birds that still visit it; but to-morrow, if there be any birds in the whole neighborhood, there will be practically the same number just where the first were killed.

I have questioned old gunners about this spot,—which I discovered by flushing two woodcock at a time when none were to be found, though they were searched for by a score of young hunters and dogs,—and find that it has been just so as long as they can remember. Years ago, when the birds were plenty and little known, five or six might be found here on a half-acre at any time during the flight. If these were killed off, others took their places, and the supply seemed to be almost a constant quantity as long as there were birds enough in the surrounding coverts to draw upon; but why they haunt this spot more than others, and why the vacant places are so quickly filled, are two questions that no man can answer.

One hunter suggests to me, doubtfully, that possibly this may be accounted for by the migrating birds that are moving southward during the flight, and that drop into the best unoccupied places; and the same explanation will occur to others. The objection to this is that the birds migrate by night, and by night this spot is always unoccupied. The woodcock use it for a resting-place only by day, and by night they scatter widely to the feeding-grounds, whither also the migrating birds first make their way; for Whitooweek must feed often, his food being easily digested, and can probably make no sustained flights. He seems to move southward by easy stages, feeding as he goes; and so the new-comers would meet the birds that lately occupied the spot on the feeding-grounds, if indeed they met them at all, and from there would come with them at daylight to the resting-places they had selected. But how do the new-comers, who come by night, learn that the favored spots are already engaged by day, or that some of the birds that occupied them yesterday are now dead and their places vacant?

The only possible explanation is either to say that it is a matter of chance—which is no explanation at all, and foolish also; for chance, if indeed there be any such blind unreasonable thing in a reasonable world, does not repeat itself regularly—or to say frankly that there is some definite understanding and communication among the birds as they flit to and fro in the night; which is probably true, but obviously impossible to prove with our present limited knowledge.

This fondness for certain spots shows itself in another way when you are on the trail of the hermit. When flushed from a favorite resting-place and not shot at, he makes but a short flight, up to the brush tops and back again, and then goes quietly back to the spot from which he rose as soon as you are gone away. He has also the hare trick of returning in a circle to his starting-point; and occasionally, when you flush a bird and watch sharply, you may see him slant down on silent wings behind you and light almost at your heels. Once my old dog Don started a woodcock and remained stanchly pointing at the spot where he had been. I remained where I was, a few yards in the rear, and in a moment Whitooweek whirled in from behind and dropped silently into some brakes between me and the dog and not ten feet from the old setter's tail. The ruse succeeded perfectly, for as the scent faded away from Don's nose he went forward, and so missed the bird that was watching him close behind. This curious habit may be simply the result of Whitooweek's fondness for certain places; or it may be that by night he carefully selects the spot where he can rest and hide during the day, and returns to it because he cannot find another so good while the sun dazzles his eyes; or it may be a trick pure and simple to deceive the animal that disturbs him, by lighting close behind where neither dog nor man will ever think of looking for him.