Farewell to Woodcock

since early November several areas of pasture have been visited regularly at night to count (and sometimes ring) woodcock, mainly in the Narberth area. By late November numbers had reached a level which remained remarkably consistant throughout the winter but recently the counts have almost halved as the birds have presumably set off towards their breeding grounds to the north and east. The density of birds has been approx 25 per km square or 100 per tetrad in improved dairy pasture, but slightly less in sheep pasture. It's early days to produce a county wintering population but it will be almost certainly in excess of 10,000, and perhaps the county's most numerous wader in winter, though cold weather movements of Golden Plover and Lapwing may well take that title.



During the cold snap in January no ringing took place but in the week after, approx 30 birds were caught and weighed - showing an average increase of 6% compared to a sample of 30 weighed in December, so they are clearly very capable of coping with reasonably long spells of hard weather. So far only four birds have been recovered (all shot locally) but with over 200 ringed during the last two winters we can expect news of one or two from their hitherto unknown breeding grounds before too long.



With the surge of summer migrants about to turn up its easy to forget about the last dates for winter migrants but if anyone sees a woodcock over the next few weeks it would be great to hear about it.
Cheers, Paddy