The Gadabout: The Woodcock GoPro Adventure.

"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." -- Winston Churchill

Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,

Rowdy and I achieved a goal today. I got a great video of Rowdy and I flushing a woodcock.


The Woodock at Apogee

I have been trying to use my iPhone’s camera to do this for several years, but using the phone with gloves while in the woods is at best a clunky procedure. Couple this with my experience that I'm only going to see 1 out of 3 or so of the birds Rowdy locates - I actually hear most of his finds - and I knew it was time to change my methods.

I needed better equipment to be successful. So, Jaybo and I gave each other a GoPro for Christmas. He just took it with him on his snowmobile trip to the Rockies and got great footage.

Here in Wisconsin, it’s finally late Mar and the first woodcocks are returning to the area on their annual migration north. Some stay and remain residential. We can’t shoot them, but we can hunt ‘em, flush ‘em and take videos.

I have a GoPro cap, so today we mounted it up, turned it on and Rowdy and I went for a walk in the grouse woods.

As you watch this video, first a disclaimer. I noticed that the camera’s microphone really picks up breathing. It sounds like I’m about to have heart failure and die. But I’m really fine and having fun. Don’t read too much into that heavy breathing.

I see Rowdy starting to get “birdy”, he dives into some dense cover and just that fast, he’s flushed a bird. Amazingly enough, it flies over close to me and lands out in the tiny honey hole pool. I have a few seconds to look at it closely. The video shows this poorly but I picked up feather details, eyes and the long beak. Then Rowdy charges over, the bird flushes again and I’m astonished when it flies right over me. I concentrate on watching it all the way out until it disappears, hoping that I’ve really got the camera running correctly because times like this are seldom.