Helpston's wildlife

Woodcock

The woodcock is a strange bird. It looks a lot like a fat over sized snipe, with its mottled plumage and long beak. But is 'strangeness' is not so much its appearance, but what is does and what it might do!

At dusk in spring the male woodcock emerges from its home in the woods and starts an eerie display flight (known as 'roding') across the tops of trees and over adjacent fields. Fluttering its wings and croaking gruffly as if flies [click to listen].

John Clare doesn't seem to have had much knowledge of woodcocks, stating in one of his letters 'I have seen odd ones here till the beginning of May and I often thought that such never went away but bred here.' At that time the woodcock was probably a rare breeding bird across most of England.

During much of the last 100 years, however, woodcock were relatively common breeding birds in the woods around Helpston. Villagers report them 'roding' over Royce Wood and across the gardens on Heath Road and there were in the region of 10-20 pairs in Castor Hanglands in the 1970's. As late as 2001 they were a common sight at the Hanglands but in 2004 and 2005 there were no reports of 'roding' birds at all.

Woodcock are still fairly common in winter when they are often flushed at dawn and dusk from ditches and woodland, including Royce Wood, Castor Hanglands and Swaddywell Pit. These birds are probably migrants from Scandinavia rather than resident breeding birds.

'Up flies the bouncing woodcock from the brig

Where a black quagmire quakes beneath the tread'

As to what it might do, there are many stories of female woodcock picking up their young between their legs and carrying them to safety when disturbed.