After reading Aaron's reminder to get out and look for woodcocks I made a point of going out last night to check the fields behind my house to see if any of the woodcocks were doing a display flight. (The first woodcock returned here on February 28th. We had two or three really cold days after that and I wondered how long they could get by if the ground froze.) Sure enough, at about 7:45 the first woodcock flew by me in an arc, and made a loud chirping sound as he was descending. Another bird made a circle very high above me, and disappeared in the dark sky. No twittering that I could hear. (8:15 pm) And one more landed near by. I could hear the peent calls from three different locations in the fields. These are old agricultural fields with lots of brushy cover. In the day time I usually find the woodcocks coming out of the dense buckthorn thickets to probe the damp low areas in the paths. (For the OBBA this location had an OS designation for a. woodcock last year.) Inga Schmidt Chagrin River Road, Geauga/Cuyahoga line ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]