October's "Woodcock Moon"

[Dean Romig]

I'm sure that the biologists employed by the RGS do everything they can to dispel "Legend and lore" but is has been my experience that a larger number of woodcock seem to alight in my stompin' grounds immediately following a full moon late in October or early November. Whether this has coincided with some sort of weather phenomenon, I never noticed but generally speaking if the weather was severe enough in Maritime Canada or Downeast Maine to cause a mass migration, I can assure you that them "Little Russet Fellers" kept right on flying well beyond my coverts.





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[John E. Williams]

Being mostly nocturnal, it's easy to draw the conclusion that heaviest woodcock migrations would occur around the full moon. I'm sure weather plays an important role, as does the shortening or lengthening of the days. Still, I've witnessed this correlation often enough over the years to mostly ignore what RGS researchers post on the internet. They also claim the ruffed grouse is essentially extinct in Indiana and got the hunting season suspended this year, yet I flushed two of them last week within a mile of each other.