The American Woodcock Singing-Ground Survey, conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, exploits the conspicuous courtship display of the male woodcock. The survey consists of numerous routes in the eastern half of the U.S. and Canada, which are surveyed in the spring. Counts of singing male woodcock along the routes provide an index to woodcock abundance, and are used to estimate woodcock population trends for states, provinces, management regions, and the continent. The survey is the major source of information considered in the annual setting of woodcock hunting seasons. The Singing-ground survey, in its present form, began in 1968 and has continued once a year to present day. There are approximately 1,500 Singing-ground Survey routes randomly placed throughout the heart of the woodcock breeding range in Canada and the United States. These routes were placed across the landscape, covering all habitat types. It is one of three surveys used to monitor woodcock population status in North America and it provides managers with an index to the relative woodcock population size. The survey takes advantage of the conspicuous breeding call of male American woodcock that can best be described as a “peent.”
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