Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Charadriiformes > Scolopacidae > Scolopax > Scolopax minor

Scolopax minor (American Woodcock)

Synonyms: Philohela minor; Rusticola minor
Language: French; Spanish

Wikipedia Abstract

The American woodcock (Scolopax minor), sometimes colloquially referred to as the timberdoodle, is a small chunky shorebird species found primarily in the eastern half of North America. Woodcocks spend most of their time on the ground in brushy, young-forest habitats, where the birds' brown, black, and gray plumage provides excellent camouflage. Because of the male woodcock's unique, beautiful courtship flights, the bird is welcomed as a harbinger of spring in northern areas. It is also a popular game bird, with about 540,000 killed annually by some 133,000 hunters in the U.S.
View Wikipedia Record: Scolopax minor

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
5
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
26
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 10.3139
EDGE Score: 2.42603
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  197 grams
Birth Weight [3]  12 grams
Female Weight [5]  219 grams
Male Weight [5]  176 grams
Weight Dimorphism [5]  24.4 %
Breeding Habitat [2]  Temperate eastern forests
Wintering Geography [2]  Southeastern U.S.
Wintering Habitat [2]  Temperate eastern forests
Diet [4]  Carnivore (Invertebrates)
Diet - Invertibrates [4]  100 %
Forages - Ground [4]  80 %
Forages - Water Surface [4]  20 %
Clutch Size [6]  4
Clutches / Year [3]  1
Fledging [1]  15 days
Global Population (2017 est.) [2]  3,500,000
Incubation [3]  20 days
Mating System [7]  Promiscuity
Maximum Longevity [3]  21 years
Wing Span [8]  18 inches (.45 m)
Female Maturity [3]  10 months
Male Maturity [3]  10 months

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

+ Click for partial list (100)Full list (116)

Predators

Accipiter cooperii (Cooper's Hawk)[9]
Haliaeetus leucocephalus (Bald Eagle)[9]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Cardiofilaria pavlovskyi[10]

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 2Partners in Flight Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2017. Accessed on January 2018.
♦ 3de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 4Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 5Nelson, AD and AC Martin. 1953. Gamebird weights. J. Wildl. Manage. 17:36-42
♦ 6Jetz W, Sekercioglu CH, Böhning-Gaese K (2008) The Worldwide Variation in Avian Clutch Size across Species and Space PLoS Biol 6(12): e303. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060303
♦ 7Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
♦ 8Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 9Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 10Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0