Eurasian Woodcock
Scolopax rusticola
Also known as: Woodcock
Habitat
Ground
Diet
Invertebrate
Active Time
Diurnal
Size
308 g
About This Species
This cryptically plumaged woodland wader is most often encountered at dusk in spring, when males perform a slow, owl-like display flight known as roding over treetops and clearings, calling with odd grunts and a thin whistle. By day it rests motionless on the leaf-littered forest floor, relying on camouflage, and is far more often flushed underfoot than seen at rest. Wet woodland with soft ground for probing — where it feeds mainly at night on earthworms and soil invertebrates — is the habitat to search.
Ethical Viewing Guidelines
- Keep to paths at dusk and avoid deliberately flushing roosting birds from the woodland floor, since repeated disturbance during the day interrupts rest between nocturnal feeding bouts.
- It receives general wildlife protection across much of its European range, though it is also a legal quarry species for hunting in some countries during defined seasons, so rules differ markedly by location.
- During the spring display period, observing roding flights from a fixed spot rather than following the bird is the least disruptive approach.
LCAvesCharadriiformesScolopacidae
Seasonal Activity
547,776 sightings · 2000–2026
Citizen science records via GBIF
All monthsThis month
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Charadriiformes
- Family
- Scolopacidae
Traits
- Diet
- Invertebrate
- Foraging
- Ground
- Activity
- Diurnal
- Body mass
- 308 g
Photo
Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons
CC-BY-SA-4.0
Occurrence data from GBIF.