This is Bird Note. I'm Marcus Rosten, and while working for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, I assisted in a study into the behaviors of one of my favorite birds, the American woodcock.

Woodcocks look like a shorebird that got lost in the woods.

Their brown and black speckles camouflaged them perfectly until they sing.

Which sounds less like singing and more like yelling the word peat over and over.

We spent many nights waiting for the sun to set and the painting to begin.

We caught and equipped a female with a band in a GPS backpack to track her live as she migrated.

We observed this bird flying over 600 miles south from Buffalo to spend the winter in North Carolina.

One night, she flew nearly 400 miles without stopping.

Picturing that bird on winter vacation on the coast reminded me how birds connect us all.

From Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge in western New York to the Croatan National Forest in

North Carolina, and all the stopover habitats in between, we need to prioritize protecting our

grasslands and young growth forests so the Woodcock's powerful peats can be heard long into the future.

This week is Black Birders Week.

To learn how to participate, follow the hashtag Black Birders Week on social media and visit

birdnote.org.