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<\/p>\nNEW YORK \u2014 American woodcocks came to New York City looking to strut their stuff, and New Yorkers fell in love.<\/p>\n
The curious birds, known for their bobbing walks and kazoo-like calls, have drawn a crowd to Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan since arriving in late March. Dozens of spectators are gathering at the park every day to try to catch a glimpse of the grapefruit-sized birds as they poke their long bills in the ground for earthworms.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a very charismatic bird. I mean, it’s goofy-looking. It’s got eyes that are always looking at you no matter where you are. It does this nice little dance when it’s nervous,\u201d said Bill Rankin, a Yale University professor who stopped by the park. \u201cHaving two of them together is a kind of nice little romantic story of spring.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woodcocks are known to stop at Bryant Park every year as they migrate north in early spring. They are strange-looking critters, seemingly assembled from the parts of other birds \u2014 a round body, enormous eyes and a long, thin bill. They’re also called \u201ctimberdoodles\u201d or \u201cbogsuckers\u201d by some.<\/p>\n
They’ve attracted more fans than usual at the park this year, in part because of widely shared videos and pictures on social media. Crowds of bird fans carrying smartphones and cameras are craning daily for a look at its silly walk, while mostly maintaining a respectful distance.<\/p>\n
The walk, which made the woodcock a viral hit on social media, consists of the bird shimmying and bobbing its head. Some woodcock lovers describe it as a mating dance, but scientists who study them have different theories. They’ve described it as possibly an antipredator display or foraging technique.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing in Bryant Park when it\u2019s sitting around when these crowds are looking at it, is mostly a little bit of foraging behavior,\u201d said Andrew Farnsworth, a scientist with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. \u201cA little of roosting and stretching, and then some of this sort of, you know, kind of sensory stuff looking around, and a little bit of deception, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An American woodcock forages as it pauses along its spring migration route at Bryant Park in New York, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. Credit: AP\/Emily Wang Fujiyama<\/p>\n
The woodcock’s courtship display is another sensation. The male makes a buzzing call described by birdwatchers as a \u201cmeep\u201d or \u201cpeent\u201d before flying high and erratically against the night sky to try to win the affection of the female.<\/p>\n
The woodcocks in Manhattan will likely continue migrating north in the middle of April. The birds’ popularity has provided a valuable opportunity to educate the public about the threats they face, such as collisions with building glass, said Ryan F. Mandelbaum, a New York City naturalist and author of the book \u201cWild NYC: Experience the Amazing Nature in and around New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n
While not endangered, American woodcocks have experienced a population decline in recent decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was also heartened to see that people are engaging with the conservation threats around light pollution and glass that woodcocks face,\u201d Mandelbaum said. \u201cI love the community and shared joy that\u2019s been emerging from people seeing the bird.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 American woodcocks came to New York City looking to strut their stuff, and New Yorkers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3046,9,24,55,54,56,3047],"class_list":{"0":"post-190495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-ap-a-wire","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-news","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-wires-bot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}