A resource of Biophilia: Pittsburgh, #bioPGH is a weekly blog and social media series that aims to encourage both children and adults to reconnect with nature and enjoy what each of our distinctive seasons has to offer. 

About this time last year, do you remember I told you about how my husband and I were so excited to hear a woodcock at the Churchill Valley Greenway? The species had never been recorded at that location before, but when we returned over the next few evenings, we distinctly heard at least one male giving the characteristic, nasally peent…peent…peent…call and followed by the higher-pitched whirly song of their sky dance! That was exciting enough, but guess what: this year, in the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, they are back and in greater numbers! This past week, we visited the Greenway multiple evenings, and heard at least five separate individuals calling on the second evening!

I am so excited about this, and not just because I love woodcocks (aka, timberdoodles, Scolopax minor). What this is also showing is that all of the hard work that the Allegheny Land Trust (ALT) and their volunteers have put into the property is paying off. The property had been a golf course for decades and then later sat vacant for over ten years. Community members reached out ALT to see if there was any possibility of protecting the land itself, and in 2021, ALT was able to acquire the property and begin converting it to a greenspace that would benefit people, plants, and wildlife. Since then, the property has become a wonderful oasis in the Churchill-Penn Hills area for walking, jogging, birding, and just being in the outdoors. Community members have joined together for litter clean-up days and to support ALT’s comprehensive plan for revitalizing the property. And with only a few years of thoughtful management, the land is coming back. And so is the wildlife!

Julie Travaglini, Senior Director of Education and Curriculum at ALT, says, “Being able to be part of the rewilding of a once very domesticated piece of land has been incredibly rewarding. Seeing creatures like woodcocks return to the space and be able to make a home there means we are on the right track in revitalizing the land.”

And what an exciting bird to welcome back! Woodcocks have roughly the shape of a plover, the elongated bill of an oyster-catcher and the large probing eye of a snipe. Often found where open forest meets shrubby meadows, woodcocks use their long bills to prod the ground in search of insects and their favorite diet items, earthworms. What they are known for, though, are their excellent moves.

If you’ve ever read Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, you may be familiar with his entry for the month of April, “Sky Dance.”  This essay focuses on the woodcock’s elaborate courtship displays in the spring. The males pair a twittering song with a high-flying, swirling display to impress females (and unintentionally, nearby bird nerds). To begin these courtship displays, the males will establish a stage for themselves in meadow-like scrubby areas near woods; then after announcing their impending performance with their peent calls around sunset, they take to the skies to impress the females. Check out the infrared video below! The display begins around the 30-second mark:

Aren’t they amazing? I am so excited that they have found this space, and I would like to thank all of you who have been a part of making that happen – the staff and volunteers of Allegheny Land Trust, the dedicated community members who come out to clean litter, pull invasive plants, and plant new trees – thank you all! And if you are doing that work somewhere else, I thank you for that. Thank protecting the green of our home.

Images: Cover, National Park Service, public domain; header, Maria Wheeler-Dubas (image of Churchill Valley Greenway)