It's almost woodcock dance season in Minnesota

Woodcocks are birds with a very precise sense of time and landscape. This can either complicate finding them or make it simple.

They're interesting little birds, oddities of the animal world, more common than we might think, since they are rarely seen.

A search involves particular habitat and close attention to the quality and quantity of light. The birds are crepuscular, meaning they are active at twilight. It is possible to find them not far from you, wherever you are. You won't know until you take a maybe 30-minute post-supper drive.

Habitat information, key for this bird, is offered by Greg Hoch, author of "Sky Dance of the Woodcock: The Habits and Habitats of a Strange Little Bird." Recently published by the University of Iowa Press, this book is a well-written and complete portrait of the bird.

Woodcocks have a preference for young woods and wet edges (angleworms are a favorite food). Males also need a dancing ground, an open area for the beginning and end of courtship behavior.

Wooing a mate is focused on "dancing," the flight display you want to see and hear. Elaborate courtship displays abound in the bird world. In Minnesota, however, few species match the woodcock for intricate novelty.

Hoch, who lives near Cambridge, answered my question "where" by saying, "They're abundant up here. I can sometimes hear seven or eight birds from one spot, and usually have one or two in my backyard every night," he said.

"Even many of our city or county parks may or should have them," Hoch said.

Display begins as early as mid-March, and continues into May.

The birds have been seen on occasion displaying at Springbrook Nature Center in Fridley.

Woodcocks are members of the shorebird family (though not to be found on any shore). They rely heavily on our land use for habitat. Patchy landscape with growth of all ages, historically left by wildfire, now needs to be created and managed by us.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources offers information for landowners who wish to do that. Learn more at https://bit.ly/2TANRDy, or google "managing your woodland for wildlife."

The male woodcock preps for his sky display by standing in an open place and giving "peent" calls. You'll know it when you hear it. The bird peents several times before fluttering high and higher into the air, with a musical twitter.

It spirals down, still singing, special wingtips creating audible vibrations. It sometimes lands exactly where it started. The birds will allow you to sit nearby if you are still and quiet.

Female woodcocks are watching, mate selection underway. They will nest in a forest clearing or edge near the dancing site.

The birds stay hidden during the day, performing the dance at dusk in the spring. Hoch said if you note the time of the first peent for two or three days you can exactly predict the display on coming days. The birds are that sensitive to light level.

Hoch works for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources as a prairie habitat supervisor. He is the author of "Booming From the Mists of Nowhere," a book on prairie chickens, and "With Wings Extended," a book on wood ducks to be released in May.