After a nap we return towards the festival site but decide on a short detour to see if we can find a Bobolink that was announced on the festival app. In fact if something worked right was the festival app and we really enjoyed finding out where the special birds are almost in real time. We don’t find the Bobolink but we do find a Crested Lark and a few Killdeers and even a Woodchuck that doesn’t really want to be photographed.
After arriving at the festival site we first explore the festival vendors and buy some souvenirs before moving to the highlight of the evening, the woodcocks. Initially we wanted to do it as a guided tour but there were no places and then we found out where to see them on our own so that is where we go. The parking is quite empty when we arrive, there is still at least half an hour before there is a chance of the woodcocks appearing.
As such we explore the immediate area for any interesting birds and find that we are actually near an archery target range. Luckily no one is shooting today so we can explore the grounds and the interesting targets. Like a bear and a turkey and even some other more conventional targets.
Birdwise there is nothing that exciting, a lot of yellow warblers and a couple of song sparrows flitting through the trees.
And then it is time to walk to the woodcock site as the sun starts to set. We can see already a crowd gathered there, we are not the only ones without a tour in fact the majority seem to be independent birders like us.
In the waning light we see lots of gulls and even a few swallows trying to find a place to roost. There are deer at the meadow edges and overall it is quite a nice evening to wait out the woodcocks.
We think that the initial group of people is everyone that is looking for woodcocks but then we notice that the actual guided group is only now joining and that it will easily double if not triple the number of people onsite. We really hope that this will not scare the woodcocks, I guess we will see in a few minutes.
We keep watching over the fields and try to hear any woodcocks with no luck until we see some movement from the other birders. We move to that location and see that a woodcock has arrived and then it also starts singing, quite beautifully. We stay for a while and wait for the flying display but it is getting really dark so in the end we are happy with the photos on the ground and return to the car and then to our AirBnB to finally rest for a longer time and recuperate some energy before tomorrow’s guided tour.
