In recent days they have been marked with a GPS transmitter three woodcocks in Sardinia, thanks to the commitment of Friends of Scolopax, of Federcaccia Nazionale with the local collaboration of Federcaccia Sardegna (with special thanks to the Regional Councilor and President of Sassari Mario Azara) and four other in the Province of La Spezia, again with the contribution of Federcaccia and with the collaboration of Marco Grandi, Massimo Canini, Franco Borrini and the very young Davide Baudoni, in his first hunting year.
The draft research on woodcocks with satellite telemetry, carried out in collaboration between Federcaccia-Amici di Scolopax and the University of Milan, called "Scolopax Overland" consists in the marking of woodcock specimens in Italy in December, with GPS transmitters that send the positions of the animals and therefore allow you to follow in detail their movements in winter and especially during the pre-nuptial migration. With this method, the best data are obtained to identify the period of onset of migration, reproductive areas, behavior during migration and in nesting period.
The results obtained in the past years have shown that the migration does not start in January but from the end of February onwards and have already been used to maintain the hunting season for the species. between 20 and 31 January in many Italian regions. The data that will be obtained from these last woodcocks will converge in the national results and will have direct application in the drafting of the hunting calendars for the coming years, as well as increasing the biological knowledge on woodcock, a species of great interest for Italian and European hunters in general.