Scolopax minor
Silhouette: Craig Nash · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%
The American woodcock (Scolopax minor), sometimes colloquially referred to as the timberdoodle, mudbat, becasse, bogsucker, brush snipe, night partridge, or Labrador twister is a small 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.
The American woodcock is the only species of woodcock inhabiting North America. Although classified with the sandpipers and shorebirds in the family Scolopacidae, the American woodcock lives mainly in upland settings. The population of the American woodcock has fallen by an average of slightly more than 1% annually since the 1960s. Most authorities attribute this decline to a loss of habitat caused by forest maturation and urban development. It is also a popular game bird, with about 540,000 killed annually by some 133,000 hunters in the United States.
In 2008, wildlife biologists and conservationists released an American woodcock conservation plan presenting figures for the acreage of early successional habitat that must be created and maintained in the United States and Canada to stabilize the woodcock population at current levels, and to return it to 1970s densities. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Point Pelee National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 2 | Riding Mountain National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 3 | Acadia National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Great Smoky Mountains National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 5 | Congaree National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 6 | Shenandoah National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 7 | Cape Breton Highlands National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 8 | Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge | 🇺🇸 United States |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York City | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Montreal | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 3 | Chicago | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Baltimore | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 5 | Toronto | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 6 | Boston | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 7 | Philadelphia | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 8 | Washington | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 9 | Detroit | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 10 | Minneapolis [Saint Paul] | 🇺🇸 United States |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report an American Woodcock sighting in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on a given day, based on 55 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 131st most-seen of the 173 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, and over a week to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report an American Woodcock in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March to January, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most American Woodcock sightings with a recorded time, and about 7 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is seen both by day and at night.
4th of 8
Of the 8 parks where we can rate American Woodcock sightings, Great Smoky Mountains National Park ranks 4th at under 5%. The best odds are in Point Pelee National Park (Canada, about 10%), Riding Mountain National Park (Canada, under 5%) and Acadia National Park (United States, under 5%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the American Woodcock is recorded against all the birds logged in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (55 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
