ORONO, Maine, June 30 -- University of Maine issued the following news release:
American woodcock, short, plump shorebirds with long, thin beaks, are widely known for their bobbing stride and nasally "peent" calls, but not for being aggressive. Yet one April afternoon, when a deer sniffed around a woodcock hen's ground nest looking for food, the hen lunged at it, scaring it away.
University of Maine researchers captured what may be the first recorded evidence of nesting birds aggressively driving away deer, revealing an unexpected defense strategy against a little-recognized nest predator. Their findings suggest woodcock can respond to deer in multiple ways, challenging the assumption that these large herbivores pose little threat to nest...