Woodcock

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Kate Humble presents the woodcock. Woodcocks are waders, thickset, long-billed, and superbly camouflaged. On the woodland floor, where they hide by day, their rust, fawn and black plumage conceals them among the dead leaves of winter. Often the first sign that they're about is a blur of russet and a whirr of wings as a woodcock rises from almost under your feet and twists away between the tree-trunks.