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The fantastic information from the two Islay woodcock suggests that we need to satellite track more woodcock, especially from other parts of Scotland to compare migrations, and we would also like to mark a few Scottish breeding woodcock to check on their migration and wintering behaviour (most likely to Ireland). The winter migrants need to be tagged in February 2010 and the local breeders in August 2010. Please get in touch with me if you would like to fund a transmitter, or transmitters, may be on your own land or woodcock hunting area, to discuss opportunities. Email: roydennis@aol.com

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Tracking woodcocks from Islay in the Inner Hebrides

An exciting new project

Several years ago, Chloe Randall, the Manager of Dunlossit Estate on the island of Islay, asked me to give the estate additional advice on the use and importance of traditional cattle for nature conservation benefits on Dunlossit. I visited Islay and was shown the operation of the farming enterprise, in particular their work with traditional cattle and free-range pigs. I walked over large areas of the estate and agreed with their plans, but also suggested a greater change to traditional cattle, Galloway, blue-greys and Highlanders, and a suggestion that these cattle should be encouraged to graze more widely on the estate. This would help with the ecological restoration of grasslands that had become rank and overgrown, and would enhance the conditions, once pigs had grubbed up the worst areas of bracken. Not only could the traditional livestock produce high quality conservation meat but would also have major benefits for biodiversity. Of special interest on the Dunlossit grasslands are chough and various breeding waders, and in winter Greenland white-fronted geese and woodcock.

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Askaig migrated to northern Russia to breed (see he migration details on the Askaig webpage). The migration journey (point to point of her locations) was an amazing distance of 4093 kilometres (2543 miles).

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Dunlossit

The trustees of Dunlossit Estate showed great interest in the biodiversity benefits of traditional grazing, and during discussions one species, which was of special interest to them, was woodcock. Dunlossit woodlands have a small population of breeding woodcock, and one evening when I was there, we went out at dusk and saw several displaying males - flying over the woodlands giving their distinctive roding calls. There is also a larger winter population which arrives in late October and November, and is an important quarry for hunters. It was assumed these birds came from northern Europe, and I thought that the local breeders migrated to Ireland for the winter, and there might be other populations present or passing through. They are an interesting and enigmatic species - and Dunlossit is interested in their conservation and the good management of their habitat.

Club de Cazadores de Becada

During our satellite tracking studies on raptors, we hear of other projects or meet other researchers. One project which particularly caught my attention was the capturing and satellite tracking of a few woodcock in Spain. This was carried out by Joseba Felix Tobar-Arbular and the Club de Cazadores de Becada, the woodcock hunting association in the Basque country in northern Spain. One of the woodcock they had caught and satellite tagged, named Navarre has migrated twice to Russia and back to Cantabria, and provided amazing insight into woodcock migration. I was very impressed by this bird, and got in contact with Joseba, who was most helpful and told me much about their project (Scolopax Sin Fronteras - Woodcock without Frontiers) and the satellite transmitters. This included a new type of 9 gram solar powered satellite transmitter designed by Microwave Telemetry.

Dunlossit Estate were also very excited by the travels of the Spanish birds and offered to fund two transmitters, which were designed for woodcock migration by Paul Howey of Microwave Telemetry. I decided to wait until after the end of the woodcock hunting season in 2009 before trying to catch some for study.

Catching Woodcock

To catch woodcock for ringing you use a spotlight and a large butterfly net, you need a really dark night, preferably at the time of new moon, with overcast clouds and hopefully raining, and a lot of luck. It's an exciting trapping technique which I remember from my years as Warden at Fair Isle Bird Observatory. I decided to go to Islay on 24th February, as the new moon was next day. Donald James Macphee, the head keeper on Dunlossit showed me the best places for woodcock, and that night we set off - some of those best places held no woodcock at night, so we tried new locations and saw 3 birds but caught none, our only success was catching a snipe. Next day, gave me a chance to check where the woodcock were in daytime in the woodlands, then at 8pm Donald James and I set off for new pastures, where the cattle were grazing in a valley, and we caught three woodcock out of five in about an hour in blustery conditions. The two heaviest were fitted with satellite transmitters and the other was ringed and released. I chose the heaviest birds as I thought they would be the most likely to be ready for migration to Europe, rather than returning local breeders (with fingers crossed). I decided to call them Lossit and Askaig - two local Islay place names. Already, we can see that the woodcocks prefer to feed at night on the grasslands grazed by the traditional cattle, because those are the best places for them to find their favourite food - earthworms - which are in the older cowpats! So the projects of good cattle grazing and woodcocks join together.

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Migration. In late March, they suddenly decided to leave Islay and their migrations are shown on separate pages - Click on the left buttons to check out the two woodcock's migrations.

Remember that these tiny radios are not GPS accurate like the larger ones on ospreys and eagles, so that there will often be times when the signals are inaccurate and can only give a rough idea where the bird has reached. Also remember the lines joining the fixes are not necessarily the track of the migrating woodcocks, it is just a convenient way of joining the migration positions.

Check www.ccbp.org/home.htm for the Spanish studies