Blogs

Every ten years the BTO and GWCT collaborate on a survey to estimate the UK's breeding woodcock population. Watch this short video by the GWCT's Olly Dean featuring our Head of Wetlands Research Chris Heward demonstrating what's involved.

Since launching our woodcock fundraising appeal earlier this month, we have had several members get in touch asking how we work with other organisations to further our understanding of this much-loved bird.

The GWCT is calling for volunteers to count ‘roding’ woodcock this spring. Potential surveyors are required to conduct two to four dusk surveys between now and 1 July, then enter their count data online. Recognising the male woodcock’s distinctive roding flights is relatively easy, and a great way to observe this otherwise shy species.

The GWCT’s Wetland research team runs two long-term woodcock ringing studies, one in Hampshire and one in Cornwall, where we ring a sample of woodcock each winter and record re-encounters with ringed individuals over subsequent years. 

Read our letter to the Secretary of State regarding the shooting of woodcock, written in response to the letter sent by Wild Justice.

We are aware of Wild Justice's letter to the Secretary of State about woodcock shooting. The GWCT has undertaken more research into woodcock ecology and conservation than any other organisation in the UK and we will be writing to the Secretary of State with our views on this matter.

We respond to a piece in The Field on the subject of shooting woodock.

As we take another step firmly towards winter, falling temperatures herald the return of our migrant woodcock - over the next few weeks they will complete their inconceivably long journeys from breeding sites across Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic states and Russia. 

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) has a long history of pioneering research on woodcock populations and migration.