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Home/Species/ American Woodcock

Scolopax minor

Gmelin, 1789

American Woodcock

G5Secure Found in 27 roadless areas NatureServe Explorer →
G5SecureGlobal Rank
Least concernIUCN
HighThreat Impact
Identity
Unique IDELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.105226
Element CodeABNNF19020
Record TypeSPECIES
ClassificationSpecies
Classification StatusStandard
Name CategoryVertebrate Animal
IUCNLeast concern
Endemicoccurs (regularly, as a native taxon) in multiple nations
KingdomAnimalia
PhylumCraniata
ClassAves
OrderCharadriiformes
FamilyScolopacidae
GenusScolopax
Synonyms
Philohela minor
Other Common Names
American woodcock (EN) Bécasse d'Amérique (FR) Chocha Americana (ES)
Concept Reference
American Ornithologists' Union (AOU). 1998. Check-list of North American birds. Seventh edition. American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C. [as modified by subsequent supplements and corrections published in The Auk]. Also available online: http://www.aou.org/.
Taxonomic Comments
Formerly included in genus Philohela. See Banks and Browning (1995) for a discussion of why the generic name Philohela should be used over Rubicola if the American woodcock is considered to be generically distinct from the Old World woodcocks placed in Scolopax.
Conservation Status
Rank MethodExpertise without calculation
Review Date2016-04-09
Change Date1996-11-26
Edition Date2014-09-19
Edition AuthorsRobertson, B; edited by S. Cannings; edited by Jue, Dean K.
Threat ImpactHigh
Range Extent>2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles)
Number of Occurrences> 300
Rank Reasons
This species is estimated to number in the millions still despite the population declines.
Range Extent Comments
BREEDING: southern Manitoba east across southern Canada and the northern U.S. to Newfoundland, south to eastern Oklahoma, east-central Texas, Gulf coast, and Florida (AOU 1998); mainly in northeastern U.S., Great Lakes states, and adjacent Canada (Keppie and Whiting 1994). NON-BREEDING: southeastern U.S. from eastern Oklahoma, southern Missouri, Tennessee, northern portions of Gulf states, and southern New England south to east-central Texas, Gulf coast, and southern Florida (AOU 1998); winter use of the northern part of this range in greatest in mild winters. MIGRATION: concentrations of migrants occur in fall at Canaan Valley, West Virginia; Cape Charles, Virginia; and Cape May, New Jersey. May concentrate also on some Mississippi River islands and bottomland areas (USFWS 1990).
Occurrences Comments
Found throughout all of eastern United States up to just north of the Great Lakes in the midwest and up to the maritime provinces in the east. Widespread in several states and provinces (McAuley, Keppie, and Whiting, 2013).
Threat Impact Comments
HABITAT LOSS: The most serious threat is habitat loss and alteration, through urbanization, reforestation, drainage of wetlands, and agricultural development (Owen et al. 1977, Dwyer et al. 1983, Keppie and Whiting 1994, Straw et al. 1994, Krementz and Jackson 1999). The primary cause has been urbanization, which has severe impacts along the east coast (Dwyer and Storm 1982, Dwyer et al. 1983, USFWS 1988, Krementz and Jackson 1999).

As forests in the northern breeding range age, early-successional stands are becoming scarce (Straw et al. 1994). Brooks and Birch (1988) report that as of 1988, young stands made up only 8% of the timberland in New England (Krementz and Jackson 1994). Loss of early-successional habitat is primarily due to changes in forest structure, not from gains or losses in acreage. Changing management objectives and techniques, changing landowner attitudes, slowing farm abandonment, increased fire suppression and the increased pace of urbanization are sources of change (Brooks and Birch 1988; USFWS 1990).

Throughout the southern breeding range, primary threats include water development, including land drainage and impoundments; and conversion of bottomland forests to cropland or forest monocultures (Owen et al 1977, USFWS 1990, Krementz and Jackson 1999, Boothe and Parker 2000). In addition, loss of marginal brush and increasing farm size increase vulnerability to hunting (Brauning 1992).

HUNTING: Hunting may potentially have a significant impact when populations are reduced by adverse weather, but little is known (Sepik et al. 1993). Data do not indicate that hunting has played a major role in declines, but proper management requires better understanding the relationship among regulations, harvest, and populations (Straw et al. 1994). An estimated 2 million were shot in 1990 in the U.S. (USFWS 1990) but harvests have been declining for the last decade (Kelley 2001). In Canada, roughly 84,000 were shot in 1992 (Keppie and Whiting 1994).

POLLUTION, PESTICIDES AND CONTAMINANTS: Acid deposition poses a potential threat through its effect on soil pH and earthworms (Esher et al. 1993). Lead contamination is thought to be widespread in eastern Canada and is likely problematic throughout regions in the U.S. where woodcock is hunted (Scheuhammer et al. 1999). Lead has been measured in woodcock at levels higher than those found in many ducks and may be ingested directly as shot, or it may be spread through the food chain as it dissolves in the soil and ingested through contaminated earthworms.

In the past, high levels of DDT has accumulated in breast muscle, closing the hunting season in New Brunswick in 1970 (Dilworth et al. 1972). Woodcock also accumulate dieldrin, PCBs, mercury, heptachlor epoxide and mirex, though generally at low levels (Clark and McLane 1974). High levels of DDT may have reduced breeding success (Wright 1965), but the effects of other chemicals are unknown. Certainly, pesticides may contribute to declines due to impact on the food chain (Boothe and Parker 2000).

COLLISIONS: Impacts with communications towers are likely as woodcock are nocturnal migrants thought to fly at low altitude; few data are available, however. Construction of communication towers in the United States has been growing at an exponential rate, increasing at an estimated 6 percent to 8 percent annually. According to the Federal Communication Commission2000 Antenna Structure Registry, the number of lighted towers greater than 199 feet above ground level (AGL) currently number over 45,000 and the total number of towers is over 74,000; up to 26,000 additional towers may be unregistered. This increasingly large number of obstacles will likely result in larger numbers of migrating birds killed in collisions (Evans and Manville 2000).

SENSITIVITY TO DISTURBANCE AT NEST: There is concern about the effect of mowing low vegetation and prescribed burning on populations, but little information available (Walker and Causey 1982).
Ecology & Habitat

Habitat

BREEDING: Closely associated with young, second-growth hardwoods and other early-successional habitats that are a result of periodic forest disturbance (Straw et al. 1994). Ideal habitat consists of young forests and abandoned farmland mixed with forested land (Keppie and Whiting 1994). Generally considered an edge species.

Requires a mix of habitats that vary with activity, time of day, and season. These include forest openings or clearings for singing displays in spring, alder or other young hardwoods on moist soils for feeding and daytime cover, young second-growth hardwoods for nesting, and large fields for night-time roosts (Mendall and Aldous 1943, Andrle and Carroll 1988, Boothe and Parker 2000). Should any of these habitats be lacking, the density or productivity of breeding populations may be affected (Gutzwiller et al. 1982).

Display areas (singing grounds) for courtship and roosting sites are provided by forest openings, clear-cuts, fields, dirt roads, blueberry fields, new tree plantations, and pastures and abandoned farmland such as hay fields adjacent to feeding cover (Mendall and Aldous 1943, Liscinski 1972, Owen and Morgan 1975, Keppie and Whiting 1994, Krementz and Jackson 1999). Burned areas or farmland reverting to woodlands often provide favorable habitat (Brauning 1992). In early summer, these areas also start being used for nocturnal roosting areas by many (but not all) woodcock (Sheldon 1971, Dunford and Owen 1973, Wishart and Bider 1976, Owen et al. 1977, Sepik et al. 1981, Sepik and Derleth 1993). In Maine, these fields average 1.2 ha, and typically have short, sparse plant cover (Dunford and Owen 1973). Plant species composition of singing grounds varies throughout range (Dwyer et al. 1982b, Sepik et al. 1993).

In comparison with singing grounds, day (feeding) cover is much less open. Use predominantly second-growth (15-30-year-old) hardwood or mixed woods with shrubs, but also including bottomland hardwoods, upland mixed pine-hardwoods, and mature longleaf pine (PINUS PALUSTRIS) after recent burning (Keppie and Whiting 1994). Dense alder (ALNUS spp.) thickets < 20 yr age are especially important throughout much of range, but young aspen (POPULUS TREMULOIDES) and birch (BETULA spp.) provide appropriate mixture in the north-central range (Morgenweck 1977, Rabe 1977, Hudgins et al. 1985, Keppie and Whiting 1994); hawthorn and dogwood also in the Northeast (Keppie and Whiting 1994, Straw et al. 1994). Typical overstory canopy cover in diurnal sites is 53-64% (Dunford and Owen 1973), but this may vary daily, seasonally, and regionally according to shrub density and soil moisture that facilitate foraging (Keppie and Whiting 1994). Shrub cover is typically quite high (75-87%; Morgenweck 1977) and often adjacent to the display area. Moist (loamy) soils are important to maintain abundant earthworms. At dusk, woodcock move from daytime feeding cover to roost at night in fields of at least 1.2 acres.

Nests in young, open, second-growth deciduous forests with well-drained soils. More abundant in open forest than in denser deciduous sapling or conifer cover (McAuley et al. 1996). Nesting habitat varies geographically, including drier woodland sites, young open woodlands, low shrubby cover, old fields, tall herbage bordering clearings, thickets, scrub oaks or pines, open woodland with dead leaf cover on ground, and flat bottomlands near water. High shrub stem density and presence of edge habitat may be important in nest site selection in some areas (Dwyer and Storm 1982).

On the western edge of its range, may be dependent on moist, wooded, riverine areas and wet meadows in young woodlands (Keppie and Whiting 1994). In eastern Maine, often nests in birch-aspen-spruce-fir (Mendall and Aldous 1943) and aspen (D. McAuley, U.S. Fish Wildl. Ser. unpubl. Data, in Keppie and Whiting 1994). Central portion of range differs. Found predominantly in hawthorn and crabapple fields in Pennsylvania (Licinsky 1972), shrubby old fields in Missouri and well drained ridge tops in Virginia (Murphy and Thompson 1993). In mid-aged, open growth, mixed pine-hardwood forests on lowland flood plains in Virginia (Roboski and Causey 1981). In the Northeast, rarely use conifer stands, except during drought when they may be critical for survival (Sepik et al. 1981). High use of older forest stands has been documented in some areas (Pace and Wood 1993), especially if there is a dense understory (Sheldon 1967, Rabe 1977).

NON-BREEDING: Non-breeding habitat is similar to breeding habitat but typically includes more man-made habitats (e.g. sewage farms, rice fields), upper reaches of estuaries and occasionally coastal meadows (del Hoyo et al. 1996) and is not limited to early-successional habitats. Unlike on the breeding grounds, mature pine-hardwood and bottomland hardwoods are often preferred (Krementz and Pendleton 1994, Horton and Causey 1979). Winter habitats range from bottomland hardwoods to upland pine stands, young pine plantations, and mature pine-hardwoods, though in some pine habitats the birds tend to focus their activities in lowlands dominated by hardwoods (Roberts 1993); generally occupy moist thickets in daytime, and sometimes shift to more open habitats such as pastures, fields (including agricultural), and young clearcuts at night. In Georgia, use of forested habitats at night was extensive whereas use of fields generally was low, though some fields were heavily used (Krementz et al. 1995). See Dwyer and Storm (1982) and Roberts (1993) for detailed information on habitat characteristics.

MIGRATORY: Diurnal habitat during migration similar to breeding habitat. Found in moist areas with young hardwoods and shrubs. In spring, restricted to snow-free sites (Keppie and Whiting 1994).

Ecology

Population density in a given area tends to be unpredictable, variable in time and space. Low temperatures and snowstorms in breeding areas in spring may reduce food availability and local breeding populations (Sepik et al. 1993). There appears to be a drifting opportunistic male population that promptly takes over abandoned singing sites. This surplus population consists of subadults that function by being able to inseminate late-nesting females, or females attempting to renest (Roberts 1980).

Reproduction

Breeding begins early January to February in south, to early April in north. Usually ends by early June (Baicich and Harrison 1997). In northern range, nest typically in young, sparse, usually upland, mixed-growth woodlands (Keppie and Whiting 1994). Also in shrubby cover, edges of clearings, in thickets, or under trees in open woodland, with dead leaf cover. Often found in moist areas. Nest a shallow depression into existing leaf and twig litter, usually < 1m from base of tree, shrub. Unconcealed and under bushes, among dead trees and twigs (Keppie and Whiting 1994, Baicich and Harrison 1997). Male performs an aerial courtship display, flying spirally upward while creating a twittering sound with its flight feathers.

Female lays four grayish orange eggs, occasionally 3-5 (Keppie and Whiting 1994, Baicich and Harrison 1997). Female incubates. Young hatch in 20-21 days (Baicich and Harrison 1997). Young are precocial, departing nest within a few hours, feeding with help of parent. Rapidly grow and reach full size at 30 days. Young are tended by female for about 1 month, can fly at 14-15 days, and become independent of parent 31-38 days (Horton and Causey 1979, Sepik et al. 1981, Keppie and Whiting 1994). Single-brooded, but may renest if the nest is destroyed or if the young are lost early during brood rearing (Keppie and Whiting 1994).
Terrestrial Habitats
Forest - HardwoodForest - MixedWoodland - HardwoodWoodland - MixedGrassland/herbaceousOld fieldCropland/hedgerow
Palustrine Habitats
TEMPORARY POOLFORESTED WETLANDBog/fenRiparian
Other Nations (2)
CanadaN5B
ProvinceRankNative
QuebecS5BYes
Prince Edward IslandS5BYes
OntarioS4BYes
Nova ScotiaS5BYes
Island of NewfoundlandS1B,SUMYes
ManitobaS4BYes
New BrunswickS5BYes
United StatesN5B,N5N
ProvinceRankNative
PennsylvaniaS4B,S3N,S3MYes
LouisianaS1B,S5NYes
New YorkS5BYes
WisconsinS3BYes
MinnesotaSNRBYes
IowaS4B,S5NYes
MichiganS4Yes
KansasS2BYes
OklahomaS3Yes
MississippiS3B,S4NYes
DelawareS2B,S3NYes
MarylandS4B,S4NYes
OhioS5Yes
MaineS5B,S5NYes
NebraskaS3Yes
GeorgiaSUYes
West VirginiaS3BYes
VirginiaS5Yes
IllinoisS4Yes
ArkansasS2B,S3NYes
North CarolinaS4B,S4NYes
KentuckyS4BYes
New JerseyS5Yes
MassachusettsS4B,S4NYes
AlabamaS3B,S5NYes
MissouriSNRBYes
VermontS5BYes
TexasS2B,S3NYes
South DakotaS2BYes
District of ColumbiaS3NYes
North DakotaSUYes
FloridaS3B,S4NYes
Rhode IslandS4B,S4NYes
TennesseeS4BYes
New HampshireS4BYes
ConnecticutS5Yes
IndianaS4BYes
South CarolinaS4Yes
Roadless Areas (27)
Arizona (1)
AreaForestAcres
TumacacoriCoronado National Forest44,594
Georgia (1)
AreaForestAcres
Joe GapChattahoochee National Forest5,321
Michigan (1)
AreaForestAcres
Bear SwampHuron-Manistee National Forest3,915
Minnesota (1)
AreaForestAcres
Phantom LakeSuperior National Forest6,521
New Hampshire (2)
AreaForestAcres
Great Gulf Ext.White Mountain National Forest15,110
Wild RiverWhite Mountain National Forest46,878
North Carolina (3)
AreaForestAcres
BearwallowPisgah National Forest4,113
Jarrett CreekPisgah National Forest7,485
Laurel MountainPisgah National Forest5,683
Pennsylvania (1)
AreaForestAcres
Allegheny FrontAllegheny National Forest7,430
Vermont (2)
AreaForestAcres
Bread LoafGreen Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests1,768
Woodford 09086Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests2,456
Virginia (10)
AreaForestAcres
Brush MountainJefferson National Forest6,002
Gum RunGeorge Washington National Forest12,620
JerkemtightGeorge Washington National Forest16,687
Kelley MountainGeorge Washington National Forest7,590
Little Wilson Creek Addition BJefferson National Forest1,725
Mill MountainGeorge Washington National Forest10,840
North MountainJefferson National Forest8,377
Oak KnobGeorge Washington National Forest10,882
Seng MountainJefferson National Forest6,428
SkidmoreGeorge Washington National Forest5,641
West Virginia (5)
AreaForestAcres
Cranberry Glades Botanical AreaMonongahela National Forest785
Dry River (WV)George Washington National Forest7,331
Falls Of Hills CreekMonongahela National Forest6,925
Mcgowan MountainMonongahela National Forest10,504
Seneca CreekMonongahela National Forest22,287
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