Governments in Britain are to consult on shooting seasons for Woodcock, Snipe, Golden Plover, White-fronted Geese, Goldeneye, Pintail and Pochard (with different packages of proposals for each of Scotland, Wales and England) but it is proposed that Pochard should be removed from Schedule 2.1 across Britain. Consultation – click here. These proposals emanate from correspondence…
Tag: woodcock
Defra fails nature – in the big things and the little things
If Defra were a school it would be judged inadequate, would be served a notice to improve and be put in special measures. But it isn’t, so it jogs on as the government department near the bottom of the political pecking order and with few friends in government or in the real world. Defra sprung…
Woodcock shooting
When you are in a hole – stop digging! GWCT say on their website that they don’t want people to shoot Woodcock before December, in order to reduce the impact of shooting on the UK breeding population. For such a prevaricating organisation their advice is perfectly clear: But they continue to muddy the waters and…
GWCT speak with forked tongue on Woodcocks
The GWCT has responded to Wild Justice’s call for the shooting season for Woodcock to be changed to protect the UK breeding population from overshooting – click here. The GWCT statement doesn’t state much but attempts to do the ‘it’s all very complicated, Wild Justice doesn’t understand’ thing. But it won’t wash. In a recent,…
The shooting of Woodcock
Woodcock shooting is a somewhat hidden activity – few birders, I think, realise the scale of shooting with something like 160,000 birds being shot each year. The UK population is around 110,000 birds in spring (based on there being c55,000 males) and so if all Woodcock shot in the UK were UK-bred the population wouldn’t…
Back at Wicken Fen
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This time yesterday I was back at Wicken Fen with a small group of friends and colleagues – talking legal challenges and looking for Hen Harriers. We saw a couple of distant ringtails and as the light was really failing, an adult male brightened the gloom. It was spotted by a lawyer! It was now…
The Woodcock’s world
This paper, from GWCT scientists and the Woodcock Network, is a fascinating insight into Woodcock behaviour and is another example of the great value of satellite telemetry in moving on our understanding of bird movements by leaps and bounds. There is a declining UK breeding population of Woodcocks which in winter is greatly augmented by…
Winter Woodcock – watch (don’t shoot)
Did you see the Woodcock on Winterwatch last night? Didn’t you just want to shoot them? No? How strange. If you did shoot them then you wouldn’t have to tell anyone and we wouldn’t have any record of your behaviour. We wouldn’t know if you shot more this year than last year, for example. Woodcock…
Tim Melling – roding Woodcock
Tim writes: Living all my life in the north I see lots of roding Woodcocks but this is the only half decent photograph I have ever managed to take. After sunset males start to become active and perform spectacular display flights known as roding. This special flight has slow motion flickering wing beats accompanied by…
Woodcock
It’s not just the BTO who are doing exciting things with tagged birds. The GWCT are tracking woodcock which were wintering in the UK. Now I would have thought that these birds would come from Scandinavia , eastern Europe and the near parts of Russia – and on the whole I’d be right. But look…