Early Woodcock Migration

[Dean Romig]

I think it's Andy Weik who is the top woodcock biologist in Maine (maybe the country) and does wonderful work banding them at Moosehorn there in Maine. We need a lot more people like him... young, dedicated people who can make the American Woodcock their life's work.






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[Tenth Legion]

I believe Andy Weik is currently the New England region biologist with the Ruffed Grouse Society. His upland expertise now has a regional reach.

I recall moving straggler woodcock on frozen ground December muzzleloader hunts in Maine and seeing flight birds returning while leaving the ice on March ice fishing excursions. They are hardy little buggers belying their fragile appearance. Love their spring song!

[Dean Romig]

Back about six years ago one of the members of the skeet group I belong to was working his dog in mid-February and the dog found eight dead woodcock on top of the frozen 'boiler plate' snow. Earlier in February a warm air mass pushed up from the south and it became very spring-like with crocuses and forsythias coming into bloom. the ground thawed and I guess the flights of woodcock began migrating.... then it snowed about ten inches - then it rained hard for a day - then the temperature plummeted into the teens for more than a week. The woodcock were trapped - no food, no water, and they died. No telling how many more in our part of New England suffered the same fate.






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[Gary Laudermilch]

Dean, your observation does not surprise me. Weather anomalies can and do cause trouble for our wildlife.

I believe the same year you are referring to I was running dogs in early March with temps very high for that time of year. I was moving quite a few grouse and thinking what a wonderful year we were going to have. It stayed warm and the foliage began to pop. The dogs pointed a grouse the third week of March that would not flush and upon close inspection found that she was sitting on 10 eggs. I quit running dogs when I feel the birds are beginning to nest so this was my cue to stop for the season. The next week we had 15 inches of heavy, wet snow. It only stayed on the ground for a few days. After it melted I went back to the nesting grouse and found her dead sitting on the nest.

Forward to that fall. Despite good early spring numbers it was almost impossible to find any birds and those I did find were all males. I quit shooting a short way into the season. I keep pretty good flush records and over the years have developed my measure of bird numbers. When my flush rate gets down to 1/hour it is about as bad as it gets. This year my flush rate was .2/hour. Yes, that's right, 5 hours of on the ground time for 1 flush.

I've been chasing grouse for over 50 years and never saw bird numbers this low.

[Dean Romig]

Wow - that's terrible Gary. In Vt. where I hunt I've always been able to flush at least two birds per hour (that being the worst I can ever remember) and as many as 8 birds per hour about six years ago (without a dog). It dropped off very sharply the next year to the two/hr. I mentioned but it is up to 4-5 per hour as of last October. Hoping for even better this year.






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[James Brad Rhodenizer]

The Ruffed Grouse Society has an interesting feature on their website. They put gps tracking on woodcock in the summer and track their migration south. Now you can track back north in the spring. Check out their website. Woodcock do start north very early.

[Dean Romig]

Right James - see page 1 of this thread for the link to their website.




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[MD*GSP]

James - I may be misreading your post but it's my understanding that the tracking is reliant upon input from participants, not hard GPS data collected from any birds themselves.

[Gary Laudermilch]

RGS has two different woodcock tracking venues. The oldest and the one initiated by RGS is a hunter input/observation mapping system that is conducted each fall. Hunters report what they believe to be the woodcock density at locations they have hunted. It allows them to post a location on the map and assign a value for the woodcock density at that location, i.e., heavy, moderate, low. It is dependent on an observers perception of woodcock abundance.

The second mapping system reported on the RGS site was initiated by woodcock researchers with the data merely presented on the site. About 3 years ago gps transmitters were developed that are small enough to be carried by a woodcock in flight. If my memory serves they are about 4 grams. This enabled researchers to answer questions about woodcock migration that have previously been based on anecdotal data. Since the inception and proof of concept the gps position data has been reported for both the spring and fall migration. More birds have been equipped with transmitters each year but the number is still small and is likely not statistically significant. However, it does provide some significant insight into the movement of the "Little Russet Fellows".