A while ago, you may remember, I posted about the American Woodcock, and mentioned how I’ve been waiting almost fifteen years to see another. Saw the first one because I was looking for dead things.
Today I wasn’t looking for dead things. Guess what I found?
Yes, the good news is that the Woodcock are migrating. The bad news is that this one isn’t, not any more. From the scene, it looks like it hit one of the ostentatious plate glass windows of one of the ostentatious luxury condominiums that are springing up like mushrooms in Jersey City. For some reason, condo designers have decided that entire walls made of glass, regardless of environmental impact, are the fashionable thing of the now; the migration of birds is not of the now, but of the ages, and doesn’t alter quickly in response to clever monkeys and their penchant for decorating with fatal invisible force fields.
When I picked the Woodcock up, it was cool but not stiff. Blood had run from one nostril down the long, flexible bill, and the eyes were still glossy. Those big eyes always make Woodcock look surprised, but zie probably didn’t have time to be surprised. I’d never touched a Woodcock before. They are very soft.
Daniel Klem estimates that more than 1 billion birds are killed by window strikes every year. New York City (in which I am including “sixth borough” Jersey City for the nonce), sitting right where birds want to fly and well-stocked with buildings that are basically big glass boxes, undoubtedly contributes a good bit to that number. And, as this article notes, the impact is disproportionately felt by migratory birds – in a hurry, in unfamiliar territory, and lacking the street smarts of Rock Pigeons.
Sometimes the frivolous ways that humans find to destroy our fellow beings simply stun me. Why live in a glass house?
February 26, 2008 at 6:03 pm
The first time I saw a Woodcock, I was standing at a parking lot at Point Pelee National Park and watched a small black dot way up in the sky doing what was some of the most remarkable combination of sound and flight I had ever seen.
The second woodcock I saw got flushed by a pedestrian on a downtown sidewalk in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and I got to watch it alive for about 5 seconds until it hit one of the shop windows. I picked its dead body up and carried it to a nearby public park where I placed it underneath a tree. I just didn’t feel it was right to leave it on the concrete just to be eventually disposed of in a garbage container…
The next woodcock I saw was probing the soil happily at Ohio’s Crane Creek. It was an exciting sight but I couldn’t help feeling a bit sad.
February 26, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Seeing as I’m not yet living in NYC (3/1!) I don’t tend to see the carnage of skyscraper window strikes…instead I see the carnage on the highways. In my commute this winter I had been enjoying juvenile Red-tailed Hawks hunting the grassy areas in the middle of cloverleaf interchanges but as the winter has wore on instead of seeing the hawks hunting I’ve seen them dead in the road.
The carnage we humans cause is unbelievable, even when it is unintentional.
On a happier note: I love Timberdoodles!
February 28, 2008 at 3:57 am
@Jochen: That’s kind of eerie. I hope I follow your pattern and see one alive and happy next.
@ Corey: Roads are the worst. My family rehabilitated a car-clipped Red-tail one time. Bit of a delicate task, that.
February 28, 2008 at 11:07 am
The eerieness goes on:
“Next most likely, you’ll see a feathery explosion of WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT whistling rapidly away while you put your foot down in the spot where a Woodcock was.”
That’s precisely how I saw my first ever Eurasian Woodcock looking for mushrooms with my grandpa, except that I was a young boy and used the expression “Shit! What was that!” (of course, the German equivalent).
As with the Smew, this must be the best description of a typical woodcock (spec.) sighting I ever read!