Guest post by our friend and expert birder, AW.
Sunday evening, following a spring time ritual, I walked from Moody Road to Maple Drive at dusk in hopes of hearing American Woodcocks and seeing their flight display. Mid-March is when they start to come back to their breeding territories. I did not find any evidence of them this time, but I was surprised to hear another bird calling from the woods west of the Huntington River and the Camel’s Hump Alpaca farm fields. In the 10+ years I’ve been walking this route, it was only the second time I’ve heard a Northern Saw Whet tooting persistently from the woods. February 14, 2012 was the other time I heard one in nearly the same place, leaving me to wonder if it is a resident bird! Nice!