An escape by a feather

In need of a lockdown project to alleviate boredom, Adam Hart ventures out at dusk to try woodcock flighting in Wales

- Adam Hart

West Wales is blessed with large numbers of migratory woodcock. Through the winter months, thousands of the little waders arrive in our hedges and covers. In normal years, we attempt walking-up operations that comprise three or four Guns and a team of dogs working through the undergrowth. But this year has been anything but normal.

Meeting friends to go after woodcock is sadly not deemed ‘essential’, which has left me to crash through the covers alone. My young labrador Crumble will charge into brambles willingly, but she is very green and does not quite possess a spaniel’s instinct for hunting and flushing birds. This led to an idea.

Instead of walking around the county, why don’t I try flighting? The prospect of wandering to some secluded corner of woodland at dusk with a handful of cartridges was an attractive one. But first, work needed to be done. I knew nothing about the woodcock’s nocturnal habits.

Everyone loves a lockdown project and successfully flighting woodcock would be mine.

Walking distance

The plan was set, but where to start? Our little area is a patchwork of small grazing fields broken up by forested valleys that often lead to the coast or an estuary. I began to mark potential flighting locations on our old OS map. With most of the country living under some form of stay-at-home guidance, only locations within walking distance of the house could be considered.

Besides, any widening of the search radius would be impossible to complete in one Christmas.

Each evening I would pick a new location to stake out. It was a highly therapeutic process and a welcome break from working on my dissertation. The changing location helped break up the Groundhog Day feeling of lockdown too.