Eurasian Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola)
About the Eurasian Woodcock
The Eurasian woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) is a medium-small wading bird found in temperate and subarctic Eurasia. It has cryptic camouflage to suit its woodland habitat, with reddish-brown upperparts and buff-coloured underparts. Its eyes are set far back on its head to give it 360-degree vision and it probes in the ground for food with its long, sensitive bill, making it vulnerable to cold weather when the ground remains frozen. The male performs a courtship flight known as "roding" at dusk in spring. It is widely believed that the female will sometimes carry chicks between her legs whilst flying, though evidence of this is purely anecdotal. The world population is estimated to be 14 million to 16 million birds.
A real field recording of the Eurasian Woodcock. Press play and focus on the rhythm and pitch of each phrase.
Listen
Our streaming copies are mirrored from the original xeno-canto file and transcoded to 96 kbps mono — a modification, so we note it here; the licence for each recording is named in its credit below.
1 recording on this page · licensed Public Domain / CC0 ×1 · mirrored on this server, free for commercial reuse · recorded in Austria, Belgium, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland and elsewhere · xeno-canto lists 1,225 recordings for this species in total.
Similar species
- Amami WoodcockScolopax miraprofile
- American WoodcockScolopax minorrecording
- Bukidnon WoodcockScolopax bukidnonensisprofile
- Javan WoodcockScolopax saturataprofile
- Moluccan WoodcockScolopax rochusseniiprofile
- New Guinea WoodcockScolopax rosenbergiiprofile
Species grouped by shared genus, family and range.