If you go down to the woods today

Walking around The Lodge at lunchtime, there was a rustle and then the sound of powerfully whirring wings. A fat, brown bird flew from the crispy leaves in the sweet chestnut woodland and away up the hill from us.

It made me jump!

For a split second, I thought, 'what on earth was that?' but then it became obvious. It was a woodcock, an enigmatic wading bird that lives its whole life in the... woods.

It's very hard to see woodcocks while they're on the ground. They are very good at it: their feathers are a mixture of beautifully mottled, rusty browns - ideal for lurking among leaf litter. They have long, sensitive beaks for finding creepy-crawlies on the forest floor, and their large eyes (for seeing in dark conditions) are set far back on their heads so they can see what's behind them.

When they spot you - long before you spot them - they're off like greased lightning.

This is the time of year when many woodcocks come to the UK, flying non-stop across the North Sea, to escape the harsh winter. They can turn up in some odd places - we often get phone calls or e-mails from people reporting that a strange, brown bird with a long beak is poking around in their garden, or that they've found one dead underneath their office window after a collision.

It's possible that, in spring, 'my' woodcock tapped its way out of an egg in a remote Russian forest, full of elk and bears and owls. Or maybe it bred in this country, performing a strange, grunting, squeaking, night-time display flight known as 'roding'. I'll never know, but it's nice to wonder.

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