Woodcock is the Eurasian woodcock, Scolopax rusticola, a plump, long-billed wading bird of the family Scolopacidae that lives not on the shore but in damp woodland, where its dead-leaf camouflage and twilight habits make it the most prized and elusive of European game birds. Its dark, dense, almost liver-rich meat is treated as the apex of the game table — classically roasted whole and undrawn, the head split and the long bill left threaded through the bird, and served on a piece of toast that catches the roasted trail.