Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Woods for woodcock
The migratory birds visit in their hundreds of thousands, but how can we do more for our very own natives, asks Richard Negus
The woodcock has become the latest bird in a growing list of metaphorical footballs to be punted about the field by the opponents of shooting. Its open season in England, Wales and Northern Ireland runs from 1 October to 31 January. In Scotland, the season opens a month earlier. It is this start date that has become the focus of ire for the anti-shooting groups.
The British woodcock is indeed of conservation concern; our native population is half that of its 1960s extent, with a believed current breeding figure of around 130,000. However, the woodcock was absent as a breeding species in Britain until the 19th century, and it is thought they only started breeding here as a result of woodland becoming managed for driven pheasant shooting.
Information gleaned from bag returns indicates that 160,000 woodcock are shot annually here, which at first glance seems impossible and certainly unsustainable. However, globally the woodcock is under no such stress, and from the first full moon of November onwards, Britain sees the population swell to up to 1.5 million as migrants arrive from Russia and Scandinavia.
The advice from the GWCT is that although the official season starts in autumn, there should be no shooting until 1 December. The main thrust of the Wild Justice argument is that the downturn in native woodcock numbers is due to overshooting at the start of the season. Rather than a self-imposed moratorium on not shooting woodcock prior to 1 December, it demands a season change be enshrined in law or, better yet, a complete cessation of woodcock shooting.
So much for what we know of woodcock numbers and the arguments over hunting them. Politics and online petitions aren’t going to help them, so what does the woodcock really need? The first and most obvious answer is for all Guns not to shoot them until 1 December. Secondly, when or if you do shoot woodcock, do so with a mindset that this is a wild harvest, one to be enjoyed sparingly.
Reversing the downturn
For practical conservationists, the role in helping to reverse the downturn in our native stocks is somewhat challenging. The grey partridge is largely charitable, in that if you have a stock, however small, and you improve and then maintain their habitat, food provision and reduce predators, they will repay you in fairly short order — you will see an upturn in numbers. Woodcock are less generous.
Our resident woodcock live and breed in open deciduous woodland with dry areas for nesting. A border of a laid hedge or a belt of evergreen will help to provide the ‘snug’ shelter they favour. In addition, woodcock require an understory. This is only achieved by allowing light into the wood. Woodland thinning allows the sun to penetrate on to the woodland floor. This combination of light and space enables scrub to grow up — bramble, thorn and regenerating tree species provide the low cover that is equally essential. Wide rides and open spaces between woods are another prerequisite.
These birds are waders, and therefore also require nearby wetlands for feeding, preferably less than 100m away from cover.
Sadly, merely having suitable woods and wetland is insufficient. Dr Francis Buner from the GWCT is a wildlife recovery and farmland biodiversity expert. He is based at Rotherfield, where the estate boasts 1,000 hectares of woodland. Within these mature woods, he and his colleagues have recorded a sizeable population of breeding woodcock.
Yet — and Francis is at pains to point this out — there is as yet no scientific explanation why half of this ideal habitat is chosen as breeding ground by the mercurial birds and the other half is shunned completely. Curiously, when the migrants arrive, the entirety of the woods fills with birds, yet when they leave the locals stubbornly stay in their chosen areas.
The disparity between what makes a favourable migrant habitat and that deemed by native woodcock as a suitable breeding habitat is well evidenced in Cornwall. The county is a popular destination for migrants. Re-records are not uncommon, showing that birds readily return to the same woods. However, records of breeding woodcock in Cornwall are nearly non-existent.
Future generations
Therefore, is there anything that can be done? The answer is a tentative “yes”. First, if you have identified your woods are used by breeding woodcock, don’t change anything too dramatically. Clear-felling such a wood would clearly be disastrous, as would altering the make-up by planting up gaps with evergreen species, for example. Even thinning, which is generally beneficial, should be avoided during the breeding season from late May to early July.
It then follows that planting new woods and creating wetlands nearby these existing breeding habitats could, in time, prove to be attractive for males to use as new roding (displaying) sites. The words “in time” are important. In the majority of cases, woodcock need mature woodland with a vibrant understory.
It is without doubt the duty of shoots in areas where breeding woodcock are known to favour — the north of England, the lower-lying areas of Scotland, Kent, Sussex and Surrey — that they focus attention on woodland and wetland management and creation. It is perhaps best to accept that you may never in your lifetime see woodcock breeding in the new habitat you have created, but your grandchildren might.
There are two positives to take away from all of this. First, by
“The improvements you make for woodcock have a wider positive impact”
improving existing woodland or creating woods and wetland with a view to it becoming woodcock habitat, you have increased your land’s overall biodiversity potential. Francis is frustrated at the shooting community’s inability to make this point clear: “The habitat improvements you make to hold the line for breeding woodcock or, with luck, increase their numbers, have a far wider and immediate positive impact on biodiversity. Amphibians, butterflies, moths and other woodland and wetland bird species will all appreciate your efforts.”
Secondly, from a sporting view, habitat that could be suitable breeding habitat will be attractive to migrants — the very birds it is possible to shoot sustainably.
The main thing we know about woodcock is that we don’t know that much about them; they continue to be a mysterious bird. As migrants they are wide-ranging, yet as a native they are notably sedentary and choosy about where they will or won’t breed. The only way we can understand why they behave the way they do is through greater scientific study.
It is important we improve habitat for woodcock, and it is equally important to help fund the GWCT’S ongoing research into this most curious of birds.