Shooters should be extra vigilant when shooting woodcock during the current cold snap – and allow the birds a suitable recovery period to keep their energy levels up, a new study states.

Research has revealed that once frozen conditions set in, there is the potential for woodcock to starve to death within a week. In the event of a cold spell in Britain, woodcock could, on average, make escape flights of 860 km or withstand frozen conditions without feeding for six days.

For the past eight years, woodcock experts Andrew Hoodless, Carlos Sánchez and Owen Williams have been examining the energy reserves of Eurasian woodcock, which is a popular quarry species found across Europe.

Trade-off

As in many other birds, the woodcock faces a daily trade-off in winter: carry too little fat and it risks starving, carry too much fat and it reduces its ability to escape from predators.

A sample of 221 birds from shoots in Britain in winter were dissected to examine individual variation in fat stores and the relationship between fat levels and body weight.

This was followed by the use of weights from birds captured at ringing sites – with 1,689 captures during 2010/11-2015/16 – to assess changes in mobilizable energy in relation to season and during cold spells.

The findings, published in the  Journal of Applied Ecology, show that woodcock are able to store large amounts of energy as fat in mid-winter and increase energy reserves as night air temperature drops below 0°C.

This suggests that, as indicated by previous research, woodcock are able to compensate for difficult feeding conditions at night by increasing the time spent feeding during the day.  And to reduce the effects of cold weather on woodcock, shooting should be restricted before energy reserves are depleted

Recovery time

Dr Hoodless, head of wetland research at the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, said: “We suggest that shooters across Europe should adopt a more cautious approach to shooting woodcock in cold weather.

“They should stop after four days of frozen conditions and allow the birds at least seven days to recover after the end of the cold period before shooting recommences.

“We think statutory authorities across Europe should adopt a consistent approach and consider a regional system for an alert advising cessation of woodcock shooting after four days of frozen conditions across an appropriate range of inland sites.”

He added: “Shooting organisations and hunters’ clubs could play an active role – especially through social media – in quickly raising awareness of adverse conditions and promoting good practice.”

This Author

Catherine Harte is contributing editor of The Ecologist.  This article is based on a news release from the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust.