Woodcock in Amsterdam!

In winter 2007/08 I agreed to train Owen Williams and another member of the then Welsh Woodcock Club to ring Woodcock as part of an investigation into their movements and to gather information on the effects of shooting. The best way to catch them is by dazzling them at night and during the training we all discovered that it is amazingly addictive! Since then Owen, Paul, Terence and myself have ringed over 1,060 Woodcock between us!! Just one in 2007, 173 in 2008, 302 in 2009, 323 in 2010 and 232 already this year with the best two months still to come! To put this into context only about 12, 000 Woodcock have ever been ringed since the start of the ringing scheme in 1909.  Bring on the first full-moon in November, let's see if we can make it to 400 this year!

Amongst a batch of recoveries that arrived last week we had our 13th foreign Woodcock recovery. The bird, ringed by Owen on 2nd March 2011 near Llanilar, killed itself flying into a window in Amsterdam on 21st March 2001, 605 kms east in just 19 days.

The other recoveries have been from Russia (9), Germany (1), Spain (1) and Ireland (1). Details of these and others can be viewed at the Woodcock Network website

http://www.ringwoodcock.net/recoveries.shtml