Rock Meadow Conservation Area, Belmont, Middlesex, Massachusetts, US

Apr 12, 2025 6:30 PM – 8:06 PM

Protocol: Traveling

0.99 mile(s)

Checklist Comments:    BBC

I led a Brookline Bird Club walk today to Rock Meadow, for our annual Woodcock walk there.  Conditions were pretty misty/rainy/cold out, but that’s been a majority of the years really for this trip.  It’s a rainy often bitter time of year; that’s one of the things with Southern New England, you think of April as being “spring” but it’s really this transition period, and every year every single person (myself included) forget that.  We walked around a bit while the sky darkened, along the back edge I’m 80% certain we had a fox sparrow, but it dove into cover before I could really get a good look at the face, and it was shadowed by the fading sky.  After that we checked on Beaver Brook, which was exceedingly high, higher than I ever had. Along the way I shared tidbits about Rock Meadow, still one of my favorite places on Earth.  

After that we hit the high-point of the back field, and almost immediately heard the peenting start, really fantastic timing (completely on accident, I figured we had another 15-20 minutes). There were at least 5 males calling, a couple of which were closer to the front fields. We had a pair starting out doing a dueling flight which was a great crowd-pleaser. After that we had several going up up up up into the mist.  One of the group participants had a better eye than anyone I’ve ever seen.  She was able to pick them out up in the clouds after everyone else had lost them for several seconds, and keep tracking them seemingly in the blank sky.  Sure enough, they would come back down and she stayed on them the whole time. I’ve never seen anything like it really. 

The highlight was towards the end, one of the males that was launching from the foundation of the old farm house went right overhead, maybe 10 feet above us before whizzing around for a while, everyone gasped at the sight.  Things settled down pretty early, likely due to the cloud cover bringing darkness quicker. I was taking a video of the “peenting” and noticed none had gone up in about a minute, and then even the peenting trailed off. 

Great trip, everyone seemed to enjoy it, and the mist and wind were quickly forgotten once the woodcocks got going.  As always, I highly encourage folks to lead a walk, for the BBC or any club really, or just with friends. You don’t have to be an expert; I had never led one before my first Woocock Walk several years ago now; now this trip is one of the highlights of my year.

8 species

Canada Goose  X

Mallard  4

American Woodcock  5    Great show despite the weather

Black-capped Chickadee  2

American Robin  7

Song Sparrow  3

Red-winged Blackbird  8

Northern Cardinal  2

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S226018850