Attractive nocturnal bird, due to the limited research in the field, still today the woodcock makes a mystery of its migratory dynamics, complex and suggestive that move millions of hunters during the intermediate seasons.
Better known by the fascinating name of Queen of the Woods, the woodcock is well known throughout Europe, Asia and in the islands bathed by the Atlantic on which it usually nest. Italy is also honored with its presence especially during autumn and spring.
Characterized by a reddish plumage that does not present major differences between male and female specimens, this proves to be highly mimetic and helps the woodcock to find safe shelter among the dry leaves.
It will surprise you to discover that this bird, whose weight can oscillate between 320 and 450 grams, loves to live on the ground and prefers solitude to company. It can be encountered with a certain simplicity in the woods, the favorite habitat of the woodcock, in the undergrowth and in general in environments where a certain degree of humidity is present.
It would not be a mistake to call it a nocturnal bird since in the morning it rests protected by the woods, while the night moves and hunts. It feeds mainly on larvae and annelids and its typical brood lasts between 20 and 22 days. Immediately after mating, the female builds a small nest where usually no more than 4 eggs will be laid and the female will still take care of the chicks exclusively for no more than a month.
Particularly interesting aspect concerning the woodcock is that relating to its movements and its annual migratory routes. It is good to underline that there are no in-depth studies in this regard and that most of the information available today is related to the data obtained from ringing. Among the most interesting researches conducted on the movements of the bird, the one funded by the University of Oxford since 2008, dedicated to the deepening of the "Migration and winter ecology of Eurasian Woodcock".
The study in question showed that 90% of the European woodcock population nests mainly in Russia, Belarus and Scandinavia, not disdaining Finland, Sweden, Norway, Poland and the Baltic countries and to an almost negligible extent (compared to other regions ) in Italy.
The English study focuses mainly, as is obvious, on migrations affecting the British Isles, highlighting the trend towards a short-term migration involving England and Ireland. Also well documented is the short-term migration that sees woodcocks from the French hinterland as protagonists moving further south towards Morocco or Spain.
The purpose of migration is that valid for all animals: the safeguarding of the survival not only of the species but also of single individuals, season after season, and above all the facilitation of reproduction.
Generally called long migrations, on the other hand, see woodcocks abandoning the nesting areas for wintering, heading towards West, South West, South, and South East. western France and along the Atlantic coast, in Spain and along the Pyrenean chain. Other characteristic wintering areas are represented by the Mediterranean basin, including North Africa, the Balkan Peninsula, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea basins. Asian migration points are instead to be considered the areas east of the Urals, up to Vietnam and India.
Obviously also Italy, both the peninsula and the major islands, is an area particularly beaten by woodcocks during wintering. It seems that commonly the woodcocks that winter on the Tyrrhenian coast, during the autumn prefer to go south, crossing the Adriatic and the Apennines. They will then go up north during the spring following the western side of the Apennines to finally head towards Slovenia, Hungary and Belarus.
Unfortunately, the studies developed so far are based, as already mentioned, almost exclusively on the ringing of woodcocks, but due to the paucity of the findings and the recapture, the information is decidedly scarce and not very precise. The ringing technique gives the only indications of the place where this took place and that of the place of shooting, telling us very little about the directions taken and the movements of the woodcocks during the various phases of the migration.