The aim of the Along the Woodcock Trails section is to keep you regularly informed about the insights gained from the telemetry tracking of Eurasian woodcocks (Scolopax rusticola), the second model species we are focusing on as part of the project. Compared to the “lapwing” section of the website, this part is likely to be more modest, though this certainly does not imply that the species is any less interesting or charismatic. On the contrary! The woodcock has always been a well-known species, undoubtedly helped by its long-standing popularity as a game bird. This has made the woodcock a popular subject in many works of art and inspired numerous local names. In Western Europe, for example, there are still monthly magazines dedicated solely to woodcocks and their hunting. While the project team does not share this enthusiasm for hunting, we certainly understand the charm of the Eurasian woodcock. After all, experiences of witnessing the woodcock's "roding" display are among the most treasured memories of many nature lovers. It is, after all, an integral part of the romantic atmosphere of spring evenings in mysterious forest glades.
Perhaps the most typical characteristic of the woodcock is its secretive and elusive lifestyle. On the one hand, this makes it a fascinating subject of interest, but on the other hand, a tough challenge for anyone embarking on the winding path of woodcock research. First and foremost, it must be understood that detecting a woodcock on its breeding ground is extremely difficult, let alone systematically monitoring it. The only exception is the conspicuous evening display of male woodcocks, which is also the only time we can capture them and fit them with transmitters. Therefore, all of the individuals we track are males. Capturing females on breeding grounds is practically impossible. But the difficulties of tracking woodcocks don’t end there—they rather just begin. Woodcocks, being clumsy birds that rely on their camouflage, like to seek out shady spots with dense vegetation during the day, providing cover from aerial predators. This has a threefold (and not very beneficial) effect on the solar-powered GPS-GSM data loggers. First, the transmitter barely charges in the low light of the dense vegetation. Second, acquiring a GPS position, which requires a lot of energy, takes up to ten times longer than it does for lapwings moving in open spaces. And the third problem arises when the transmitter tries to connect to a weak mobile signal to send the data. It’s no surprise, then, that the data we receive is as precious as gold.
The reward for overcoming these challenges, however, is the uniqueness of the data obtained, with exciting new insights waiting at every turn. A prime example is the story of Amadeus, the first male we fitted with a transmitter in 2021 in the former military area Ralsko in northern Bohemia. Although Amadeus was captured during his display flights (and continued displaying in the area for the next two weeks), he then set off and travelled through Poland and Belarus to Finland, where he spent not only the rest of that season but the following season as well. Such behaviour (displaying during migration) had never been documented in woodcocks before. Equally surprising was his two-day excursion to Russia, 120 km away, which he took from his Finnish territory in 2022. Thanks to the satisfactory battery charge during his first trip to Finland, we were also able to show for the first time that woodcocks do not fly continuously during their nocturnal migrations (as previously thought by researchers using less precise telemetry methods) but make several stops during the night. As a bonus, his Finnish territory became the northernmost position ever recorded for a woodcock ringed in the Czech Republic (and his Portuguese wintering grounds, conversely, became the westernmost). Throughout our four-year-long woodcock research, we have never been short of similar knowledge-expanding insights, and we hope that more will continue to emerge, allowing us to share them with you in real time through this website.
At present, we will be providing data from seven male woodcocks, tracked in 2024. Unfortunately, most of them are currently out of contact. However, it is very likely that this is not due to their deaths, but rather because they are in dark and often mobile-signal-free forested areas. The experience we’ve gained from woodcock telemetry over the past four years keeps us cautiously optimistic that the situation might improve once the woodcocks migrate to their wintering grounds. Everything, however, will depend on the type of environment they choose for wintering, and especially on the condition of the transmitter. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we’ll be treated to many more delightful surprises from the woodcocks!
