Scolopax rusticola Woodcock (2) Skul Birds Aves Charadriformes Scolopacidae

Eurasian Woodcock Skull Scolopax rusticola Birds Aves Charadriformes Scolopacidae cm 11.2, complete of mandible, only a piece, as in photos.
Family: Scolopacidae.
Common name: Eurasian Woodcock.

The Eurasian Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola, Linnaeus, 1758) is a bird of the order Charadriformes, family of the scolopacidae.
Scolopax rusticola is characterized by a pointed beak and a camouflage color that adapts well to the environment it frequents, tending towards brown, variously barred with black and yellowish white. The woodcock's range includes almost entirely the Palearctic ecozone. An insectivorous bird, it feeds essentially on worms and larvae. Food is searched for with the sensitivity of the beak directly in the subsoil of the forest or inside the trunks of trees.
The woodcock's nest is quite simple, built on the ground in depressions in the ground and stuffed with everything that is around: dry leaves, twigs, blades of grass. In this the female deposits an average of four eggs, which hatch after three weeks of incubation.
In the feathers of the woodcock's wing there is a particular feather called the "painter's pen", which is used by painters for precision finishing on canvases. Just a few millimeters in length, it has no particular aerodynamic support functions, but it completes the assortment of wing feathers with which the woodcock is able to make sharp turns between the branches and trees of the forest where it mainly lives.
Starting from the 19th century, a breed of dog was selected, the English Cocker Spaniel, today appreciated as a companion dog, but once specialized in woodcock hunting, which gave the breed its name.
In Italy the woodcock is a huntable species and is considered the "queen of the woods" due to its majesty and difficulty in catching.