Memories of my best garden tick

On my way home today I checked the ploughed fields around Nelson Hill for Golden Plover, with no luck.
I was walking back to my house via the Brockwell scrubland not looking for anything in particular when I noticed an orangey almost diamond shaped bird flying towards me low overhead. At first I thought it was a Snipe but I looked closer and saw it was a Woodcock.
Usually a bird I associate with cold winter days not mild spring days, I think that it is a very underrated bird.
I watched it fly silently overhead before landing in a patch of thorn bushes and out of sight.
I was just thinking back to the first time I saw a Woodcock, which was in winter 2001. It was snowing and I was watching out the window when I thought I saw a cat moving slowly under the Plumb (bird magnet) tree.
I went into the garden to investigate and a Woodcock came into the open before flying of over the fence calling as it went.