Blogs

The following management recommendations are made based on our experience of the past fifty years and the body of research we have carried out at the GWCT.

GWCT research has helped increase our knowledge of woodcock in recent
decades, but that alone does not help support the species. Applying this understanding to develop conservation guidelines is our best chance
of reversing the downward trend in breeding woodcock numbers.

GWCT staff members have co-authored a recent article, “Vocal individuality measures reveal spatial and temporal variation in roding behaviour in Woodcock”, published in the ornithological journal Ibis. 

Take a closer look at our reserach on habitat for breeding woodcock, national survey findings for woodcock habitat and roding counts.

During prolonged periods of freezing weather, waterfowl and waders are less able to access food resources and, as such, become more reliant on their fat reserves. 

The GWCT has been carrying out woodcock research since the 1970s, with a programme of studies that has only intensified as it has progressed through the decades, each building on those that have gone before so that a more detailed picture has developed. 

The question of how many woodcock might spend their winters in the UK may seem straightforward but is actually extremely difficult to answer. The fundamental reason is the secrecy of these birds, so that simple counting of those we may see in winter is not an accurate reflection of the number that might be present, camouflaged in the woods and active at night.

One of the most important things to understand about woodcock in the UK is that there are two distinct groups which behave in different ways and are experiencing different fates - resident and migratory.

Woodcock are found in woodland habitats right across northern Europe and Asia, ranging from Britain in the West to Japan in the East.

Adam Vaughan’s recent article Shooting curbs to save endangered woodcock, includes inaccuracies which make it misleading. The woodcock is neither rare nor endangered.