The Slowest, Grooviest Bird in the World

Is it the timberdoodle? Or the hokumpoke?

This bird flies at an impressive speed of 5 kmph — about as fast as the average human walks.

Which bird is this?

▹ Timberdoodle
▹ Hokumpoke
▹ Bogsucker
▹ Labrador twister
▹ Night partridge
▹ Brush snipe
▹ Becasse

Actually, they are all colourful names of one bird: the American Woodcock (Scolopax minor).

Bird of many names. The American Woodcock (Image by Louis Brodeur, Macauley Library)

“Why?”, you might wonder. Such loquaciousness over one borb? At first glance, the bird seems unremarkable. Plump, almost bulbous, robin-sized, short-necked, broad-winged, short-legged, brown with grey stripes, well-camouflaged into the ground they plod on. Nothing stupendous, other than the cinnamon underpants, perhaps.

But watch them dance:

The grooviest of them all. Watch a woodcock ‘timberdoodle’.

All of a sudden, bogsucker seems like a pretty unfair name. What moves! Why would a woodcock fly, when it can ‘timberdoodle’? But why, you’d wonder again, do the woodcocks do whatever-that-is?

Food.

The rocking movement of the bird makes the earthworms in the soil move around, making them easy to detect. Then in goes the outsized beak, and out comes the meal. In this case, the zaniest bird gets the worm. One wonders if the worms pop up just to watch the birds groove. Weird, weird wildlife.

Did you know?

→ The mesmerizing sky dances of the woodcock helped spur the mid-twentieth century conservation movement.
→ Their eyes, positioned high and near the back of their skull, allow them to watch for danger in the sky while they groove and probe the soil for earthworms.

Learn more about the cute weirdos here: Timberdoodles