Woodcock

 This is one of those creatures that I am not going to get a photograph of. Woodcock are mostly nocturnal  and one generally only sees them when they are flushed from the undergrowth. I was walking the dock this morning and saw one in our bog meadow. These birds look very like snipe (I saw one of these this morning too!) but are dumpier and they show a reddish colour in the tail feathers which are fanned out as they take off. We see more woodcock in the winter as they migrate here from Scandinavia. There is a population resident here but just near the house I have only seen them in Autumn and Winter in scrubby wet habitat. In the absence of a photograph I am posting a photograph of the appropriate page in my bird book!

I feel fortunate if I see woodcock more than a couple of times a year. In the summer they do a dusk flight called "Roding" which I used to see when I lived in Scotland but haven't witnessed here.

Diary

At this time of the year the autumn gales often reveal birds nests left over from the summer. I found this nest on the ground underneath the Scots Pine tree in our copse. I am not sufficiently expert to identify the species  - a blackbird maybe?

Nothing in the camera traps.