In the latest volume of Bird Study there are papers reporting on two UK national surveys of waders: Woodcock and Dotterel. You could hardly pick two more different species, with Woodcock being largely nocturnal and living in wooded areas, and Dotterels living on the peaks of the highest mountains in Scotland (mostly). But the messages are both of falling populations – that didn’t surprise you did it?
I didn’t take part in the 2013 Woodcock survey because I was travelling in the USA at the critical time, doing research for A Message from Martha and chatting up waitresses in diners, so I missed out on visiting local woods at dusk to listen and look for ‘roding’ Woodcock. The message from this national survey is that there has been a decline of over 30% in numbers in a decade. I used, sometimes, to detect roding Woodcock at Glapthorn whilst waiting for Nightingales to burst into song, but haven’t recorded one there for ages. Also, sometimes in my early years working for the RSPB, leaving the office at Sandy in the evening I would stop to watch a roding Woodcock fly overhead, but those days seem to be long gone.
In Scotland and the north of England the Woodcock is faring better – it’s clearly hard for Woodcock in the soft south. There are lots of reasons why this decline might be taking place but we can’t really be sure yet. It’s unlikely to be anything much to do with shooting Woodcock in winter though.
I didn’t take part in the 2011 Dotterel survey because I live a long way from the high mountains where they breed in the UK – and by chance, that was another year when I was travelling in the USA at the relevant time. Dotterel breeding numbers have declined by about a half in the last 20+ years. Again we aren’t completely sure why, but a range of factors are possible and may all be having some impact: habitat degradation through overgrazing and/or nitrogen deposition, climate change, Raven predation and disturbance by people in bright, coloured cagoules.
This issue of Bird Study has other interesting papers – some fascinating. Corncrakes are increasing in numbers still, thanks to effective science-led conservation action, but the rate of increase has slowed or stopped. Kingfishers, at least in the Czech Republic, eat a few things that aren’t fish. Bluethroats go to India in the winter (Wow!) and Ring Ousels go to Morocco via France – studies using geolocators are opening up our understanding of bird movements in double-quick time. And there is much more that I haven’t read in detail. Subscribe to Bird Study here.
![By Francesco Veronesi from Italy (Eurasian Dotterel - Pallas - Finland_88Image21) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://markavery.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Eurasian_Dotterel_-_Pallas_-_Finland_88Image21_15021905644.jpg)
I was lucky enough, a few years ago when I lived in a caravan in the woods between Wheldrake Ings and Skipwith Common, to see Woodcock for the first time. I was on a vision quest, alone and scared in a clearing in the woods, and they appeared from nowhere. I was even more scared at first, but then fascinated by their noises and flight patterns. I had absolutely no idea what they were, but got a lot on both a natural history and a psychological level when I subsequently worked with Woodcock medicine.
I think of my 26 house moves in my life, the one out of my flooded caravan and wildlife paradise was the saddest. Tell me, any South Devon birding folk, where might my nearest Woodcock be for next year?
Interesting.
What are the Czech kingfishers eating then (I’ve not read it)?
Is it river-dwelling invertebrates & amphibians (as well as fish) or are they beginning to take after their arguably more successful “tree kingfisher” cousins that prefer warmer climes… in that they eat anything BUT fish & hunt over land?
I’m afraid it wasn’t ’til I honeymooned in Sri Lanka & watched (when I *ahem* got a second!) a white throated kingfisher catch lizards from its vantage point on a telegraph pole on our jungle road (nowhere near water) that I realised the “kingfisher” name was a bit of a misnomer worldwide.
If memory serves me right, these “tree kingfishers” make up something like 2/3 of all “kingfisher” species, despite only being 1/3 of the kingfisher families.
The whole story of kingfisher evolution & classification is fascinating I think. Maybe just me!
I’m waffling… but sometimes i just think isn’t the sheer variety of birds even in one small suborder (Alcedines for example!) wonderful?
Saw my first woodcock for the season a few days ago in the woods next to my home here in South Cornwall.
We see more here when the cold really bites farther East & they have trouble feeding over there so move to the milder South West.
Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.
I love the way they wait until you have almost trod on them before they explode at your feet.
Beautiful birds.
Hello Mark,
Perhaps I might comment on some of the factors you mentioned in your piece on the perceived reduction of dotterel breeding numbers..
“Disturbance by people in bright coloured cagoules”. The majority of hillwalkers keep to paths and move quite quickly in their desire to reach yet another top.
Not addressed at all in the Bird Study paper was the huge increase in “guided” photographic trips. I had spoke with one self-designated “guide” in 2014 as he was, in my opinion, leading a number of clients to photograph dotterel at an inappropriate time in the breeding season. These people, in my opinion, are much more of a menace than ordinary hillwalkers.
Regarding raven predation, on one site I monitor, a pair of ravens bred for the first time in many years and four young fledged. I observed and photographed one of the adult ravens taking a male dotterel from its nest and feeding it to its young. On several occasions during that summer (2014) I observed them taking and eating ptarmigan chicks. Once the chick phase was over the ravens disappeared and did not return in 2015. (Perhaps they ventured too near a grouse moor!)
Ravens are not the only predators of course – foxes abound, even on the highest tops. Their scat can be found quite readily on the sites that I visit (for eight months of the year, sometimes longer). I watched and photographed a fox trying unsuccessfully to dig out snow bunting nestlings on one site, also in 2014.
Peregrines and merlins take their occasional toll, and one or the other can be seen on most sites that I visit regularly.
On one site reindeer pose a great threat, particularly when they stampede when disturbed by dogs – this is a specialised threat, not mentioned at all in the Bird Study paper.
Gulls are sometimes present and are another threat.
In the last thirty years, the only factor that has substantially increased has been the new and growing phenomenon of the guided photographic tour. There have always been ravens, and although the total raven population in Scotland has increased, this is often localised. Peregrines, merlins and foxes have always and continue to be a threat.. Reindeer on a couple of sites have been present since dotterel surveys began in the late 1980’s.
Dotterel surveys are usually one day affairs, and, according to the Bird Study paper, just three sites were “monitored more intensively”. I would not personally, from the numbers quoted, call the monitoring “intensive” (2013, 3 sites, 3, 12 and thirteen visits and 2013, 3 sites, 8, 11 & 16).
I was surprised that from the Bird Study paper that the National survey “for the first time” included a pre-season survey. They really must get out more from their desks. The earliest that I have seen dotterel was on March 27 2012 on Ben Macdhui. That was an exceptional late March with essentially a snow free plateau. The snow free period did not last long as, by April, the plateau had a 100% covering of snow. By late April, dotterel are present – just not always on the high tops which are usually still snowbound at that time of year.
There seems to be a perception, sometimes almost pedantically so, that dotterel only breed on the highest tops and only in certain habitats. This is not so.
In the 1960’s dotterel bred in the flatlands of the Netherlands – a film of this can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPUnWEfLZUM
Photographs of breeding dotterel in the Netherlands appear in Desmond Nethersole-thompson’s 1973 monograph on the dotterel between pages 176 & 177.
I have been a hillwalker for 50 years or so and seldom a week goes past when I am not on the hills in all seasons. I often walk where most hillwalkers seldom do ( that is, almost always avoiding Munros or Corbets). This has the advantage that I can often walk 25-30 kilometres and see no one. These hills are free of hillwalkers and birders and free of what I regard as the menace of guided photographic bird tours. I see the occasional stalker/gamekeeper and that is it. What I do see are birds and mammals and I see dotterel where conventional wisdom tells me that I shouldn’t. The lowest altitude I have seen dotterel in the breeding season in Scotland is less than 500m. Always expect the unexpected.
Personally, I see no evidence of a reduction in overall dotterel numbers.
If, I am wrong and there is, indeed, a real reduction in dotterel breeding in Scotland one should not assume that it is a result of climate change, nitrogen deposition etc. etc. It is important to what happens to dotterel outwith the breeding season. How many are illegally trapped and killed in Malta for example? The dotterel is only with us, usually, from late April through August and sometimes into September. It would be interesting to know what happens in winter. There are three RSPB authors among the seven authors of the paper in Bird Study Perhaps they might consider using their next sabbatical to spend six or eight weeks in Morroco and Algeria studying the overwintering dotterel – we might learn something useful from this.
Good comment Robert.The dotterel is possibly the finest bird that flies .I have watched them intermittently for forty years,finding a number of nests and broods down to the 800 metre line.The last time was in 2012 on the ridge west of loch ericht,a difficult bird that my companion found sitting next to his boot. This was about 830 mtrs.A number of hills this sort of height where I was successfull in the eighties have lately drawn a blank.However I agree with you they can be much more elusive than popularly thought.
I hope to be on the ground next June.Apart from my local area my favourite OS map is sheet 42 Loch Rannoch,a tale to tell on every top!