Should We Still Be Shooting Woodcock?

As the resident population of this gamebird declines, should it remain on the quarry list?

- Andrew Hoodless

No other bird on the shoot  sparks discussion like the woodcock. Everyone, it seems, is fascinated by this enigmatic game bird and rightly so, for the bird that has just flushed at your feet, or jinked down the line, may have been pottering around the wood unnoticed all summer or it might recently have flown between 1,500 and 4,500 miles from a breeding ground between Norway and Siberia. So should woodcock be shot? The question is not new and has divided opinion within the shooting community for a while. However, there is now strong evidence of a decline in our resident breeding woodcock population, which makes the question more pertinent.

RESIDENTS AND MIGRANTS 

Britain and Ireland support a relatively small resident breeding population of woodcock, with the most recent estimate of the British population (from counts of displaying birds) being 55,240 males. The European breeding population is estimated at seven to nine million males and in winter we see a large influx of migrant woodcock from the main European breeding grounds in Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Baltic States and Russia. These birds, which feed primarily on earthworms, beetle larvae and fly larvae by probing, are forced to leave their breeding sites when the ground freezes in autumn. Migrants arrive from October to January but timing and numbers vary regionally within Britain and Ireland, as well as annually according to the severity of cold weather on the Continent. We estimate that between 800,000 and 1.3 million migrant woodcock winter here, with most departing in March.