{"id":2189623,"date":"2026-01-01T06:00:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T05:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2189623"},"modified":"2025-12-18T14:52:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T13:52:33","slug":"its-called-a-wader-but-doesnt-wade-and-doesnt-like-to-fly-either-discover-the-bird-thats-regarded-as-something-of-an-oddity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/its-called-a-wader-but-doesnt-wade-and-doesnt-like-to-fly-either-discover-the-bird-thats-regarded-as-something-of-an-oddity\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s called a wader but doesn&#8217;t wade \u2013 and doesn&#8217;t like to fly either. Discover the bird that&#8217;s regarded as something of an oddity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The woodcock is surprising in many ways, not least because of its association with woodland habitats, largely nocturnal behaviour and strange display-flight.<\/p>\n<p>Related to the snipes, the woodcock has evolved to take advantage of the small invertebrates found under woodland leaf litter and in damp soil.<\/p>\n<p>This ground-loving species flies only sparingly, except when on migration or during courtship, and does not usually wade.<\/p>\n<p>Such behaviours set it apart from other waders \u2013 though there are several other woodcock species globally \u2013 and the bird is regarded as something of an oddity.<\/p>\n<p>The beautifully marked plumage provides camouflage against the woodland floor on which it nests, and its short wings and stout legs aid a woodland lifestyle.<\/p>\n<p>Individuals may forage on woodland rides at night or move into surrounding pasture to feed, where they may be joined by common snipe if the ground is sufficiently damp; otherwise they face little competition from other wader species.<\/p>\n<p><i>This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/birds\/woodcock-wader-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">article<\/a> by Mike Toms was first published by Discover Wildlife on 28 NOvember 2025.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The woodcock is surprising in many ways, not least because of its association with woodland habitats, largely nocturnal behaviour and strange display-flight. Related to the snipes, the woodcock has evolved to take advantage of the small invertebrates found under woodland leaf litter and in damp soil. This ground-loving species flies only sparingly, except when on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1178,"featured_media":2205514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2017\/08\/GettyImages-545113690-7406859.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6985,5],"tags":[748,4066,703,1716],"class_list":["post-2189623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-wildlife","tag-common-snipe","tag-invertebrates","tag-snipe","tag-waders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2189623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2205514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2189623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2189623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2189623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}