"... American woodcocks are a bird known for many things: their plump, mottled look and loud, buzzy 'peent' call; a funky rocking walk worthy of internet stardom; and of course, their infamous 'sky dance' courtship display, a spectacle of springtime that captured the heart of conservationist Aldo Leopold, as retold in his seminal 1949 work 'A Sand County Almanac':

'Up and up he goes, the spirals steeper and smaller, the twittering louder and louder, until the performer is only a speck in the sky,' he wrote. 'Then, without warning, he tumbles like a crippled plane, giving voice in a soft liquid warble that a March bluebird might envy.'

Sadly, in the years since Leopold’s writing, they’ve earned a different reputation.

'Collisions are all too common for American woodcocks, especially during migration periods when they pass through large urban areas,' said Stephanie Egger, biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Lab..."