On Spotting a Woodcock
…. and the naming of our wood
The following is the first blog I wrote for Woodlands.co.uk on our first sighting of a Woodcock:
“We made our way along a narrow track, through young birch and old chestnut coppice. It had been recently cut to mark the boundary between our wood and the next. Down a muddy bank and into thick bramble that marks the beginning of the stands of old pine. There was plenty of water flowing in the stream in February. It came up out of the bramble, a partridge like bird with a flash of russet brown. What was clear was the immensely long beak. It had to be a woodcock. It was a bird that was new to me. I checked it out at home. Yes, the perfect conditions for this shy bird.
A week or so later in the same spot, we flushed it again – a much clearer view this time. No alarm call. It was the beak that stood out as we saw it fly low into the next stand of trees. We will avoid this part of the track in future so as not to disturb it.
Most of the woodcocks seen in UK during the winter are from Scandinavia and Russia. They need our mild climate to enable them to probe that long bill deep into soft ground searching for worms and beetles. In April they return North to breed. A small population remains here. Were we to be lucky to have a breeding pair in our wood?
During April and May the male woodcock displays by flying low over the tree line of its territory at dusk. It is during these “roding flights” that you are most likely to see it. We camp out on a rise in the wood with a perfect view of the tree line – nothing, and no more views of our bird that summer. We felt privileged at least to have had it in our wood for a time. It gave us the perfect reason to change the name of Rig Wood, not such a special name, to Woodcock Wood. We had to wait until the next winter before seeing another.“
and since then:
We saw a Woodcock a couple of times during the winter of 2018, and in November 2019 managed to capture a shot of it on a camera trap set near to its usual haunt. Winter migrant Woodcocks are faithful to their traditional locations, and so it is likely we have seen the same individual each year. We worry though because the camera triggered by the Woodcock often picks up shots of foxes, the main (natural) predator of the Woodcock, and the foxes are a fit looking bunch.
Woodcock numbers and distribution:
As with so many birds, the Woodcock is in significant decline. In 2015 the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) reported that the estimated number of breeding pairs in UK was in the region of 50,000, while in winter this number is supplemented by about 1million migrants from Scandinavia. The research they cited concluded that between 2003 and 2013 the “The decline in range and breeding numbers is considerable and most severe in the south and west of Britain. The greatest decreases have occurred in locations containing small tracts of fragmented woodland, while regions with large areas of continuous woodland have experienced the least change.” https://www.bto.org/our-science/publications/peer-reviewed-papers/current-status-and-recent-trend-eurasian-woodcock.
The research cited by the BTO was funded in part by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) and the Shooting Times. Both these organisations of course have a particular vested interest in the maintenance of Woodcock numbers.
The GWCT provides an interesting interpretation of the evidence derived from the research. While it advises caution and caveats in the shooting of the Woodcock, it concludes that the recommendation of an outright ban on shooting would not halt the decline in numbers. https://www.gwct.org.uk/policy/position-statements/shooting-woodcock/
While I understand the logic of many of the arguments they make, personally I do not see how shooting them will help reverse the overall decline in the numbers of Woodcock . We are certainly delighted to share our wood with one, and look forward to its return in order to see it, not shoot it!