Sad woodcock, Cote

Stella is gone, and in her good-riddance wake, the ferocious storm left bitter cold, howling winds, and about three inches of hard-frozen snow. The fact that there won't be any decent snowshoeing or cross-country skiing is sad enough—there might be some when it starts to melt—but what's really depressing is the impact of the hard stuff on the early migrants. The ducks will probably be OK, since there's still a fair amount of open water on the local ponds, but the situation of the Woodcocks, who arrived early to court on what had been friendly and thawed ground and skies, might be downright dire. Another name for these shorebirds-turned-forest-residents is Bogsucker, which describes their feeding behavior: the birds use those long bills to probe the softened soil, particularly around wetlands, for earthworms. But much of the earth is now covered in impervious white, and far too much of the bogland is frozen solid. When I spotted this handsome and, I thought, confused, even resigned, Woodcock walking across the snow, I found the scene heart-breaking. I hoped and prayed the bird could find something to eat, or, at the very least, had the strength to fly back to easier living in the south, from where it might return when conditions improved.