Woodcock hunting: Commonly known as the "queen of the woods" or the "lady with a long beak", the woodcock has always been one of the most desired "women" by Italian and foreign hunters.
We are talking about the woodcock, a migratory bird of the genus Scolopax rusticola, which nests in the regions of Northern Europe and then migrates to the Mediterranean areas between October and November. The step of the woodcock takes place during the hunting season, transforming the specimens in flight into the most coveted prey by migratory hunting enthusiasts.
Those who exclusively hunt woodcock, like to call themselves a woodcock, because this type of hunting activity is highly specialized and targeted. The woodcock, in fact, is a very difficult game to manage, because it is very skilled in camouflaging itself among the dense foliage of the forests. Silent and solitary inhabitant of the woods, this prey is easily found among the shrubs of the Alps and the Apennines.
One of the privileged itineraries of the woodcock, during the hunting season, is the hilly area of Emilia Romagna, where some specimens stop for a few hours or a few days.
The favorite places to hunt the "queen of the woods" are those that wind around the Romagna Apennines, starting from the hills between the villages, Roncofreddo Santa Paola and Sant'Arcangelo di Romagna. The hinterland of the latter municipality is also characterized by the suggestive valleys of the Val Marecchia, divided by the homonymous river.
The hunt for the “queen of the woods” or, in this case, the “sovereign of Romagna”, within the indicated route, can be exciting and full of surprises. Hunting in Romagna, in fact, is not a walk, but an itinerary also made up of steep climbs. From the municipalities we have just indicated, including at an altitude of just over three hundred meters above sea level, we climb towards the highest hills and the Apennine areas, until we reach the splendid beech woods typical of the wooded population of Romagna.
Within the wooded areas you will also find silver firs, maples and a rich vegetation made of ferns, mountain lettuce and some small pink geranium, all covered with decomposed beech leaves, which provide nourishment and protection to the soil of the undergrowth. It is inside the undergrowth that the woodcock finds its ideal habitat during its migratory break. The bird feeds, in fact, on insects and earthworms that live on undergrowth very rich in humus and organic matter (leaves and other decaying plant remains). The activity of the woodcock is mainly nocturnal, while during the day the bird rests protecting itself under the leaves and clearings or looking on the ground for other material necessary for its nourishment. This behavior determines the complexity of the hunt for the queen of the wood.
To find it, the hunter is, in fact, forced to move between narrow spaces and dense clearings where the woodcock can easily blend in due to the color of its feathers. Aside from the mottled bronze, gray and yellow plumage, the bird's appearance is easily recognizable due to its very long beak (hence its name) and vivid side eyes. In recent years, due to climatic variations and indiscriminate hunting activity, the overall population of woodcocks has greatly decreased. However, a specimen of woodcock was found in the Romagna woods on the first Sunday of November this year. The presence of migratory birds, at that date, was almost three thousand specimens belonging to 38 different species. As for the woodcock, it is only hoped that its presence can always be nourished and abundant, especially if we witness the migratory step of specimens from Northern Europe.
Woodcocks never overwinter in large groups, but at most in five, sometimes even alone. According to some statistics, there has been an increase in males compared to females. The increase in frosts in Italy, however, is strongly compromising the hunting of woodcock, which in Emilia Romagna has been banned when temperatures drop below zero. In fact, when it is cold, woodcocks seek nourishment by concentrating only in wooded areas without frost, becoming more vulnerable to hunting and therefore more exposed to the risk of extinction.
The hunt for the queen of Romagna is, therefore, both exciting and complicated, but if supported by the right equipment it allows to achieve excellent results. The ideal equipment to undermine the "long-beaked lady" consists of dogs and weapons. The ideal dogs for catching woodcock are pointing dogs, the real specialists in migratory hunting.
For the woodcock, however, you need dogs trained exclusively for this. In this sense, the real “woodcockers” are the English setters, but continental breeds, that is, not selected in England, can also do well. The choice of the woodcock dog must also be made on the basis of the hunting environment and the characteristics of the hunter. If the latter is an attentive and lively type, one can think of a calm and poised dog, while a lazy hunter must necessarily accompany a awake and snappy dog. In the dense undergrowth of the low hills of Romagna it is also possible to use foreign or Italian continental breeds (bracco, spinone or spaniel). Among the continental breeds, the spaniel is the one that adapts to small but very dense woods. The general rule, when choosing a woodcock dog, is that it comes from parents who are themselves specialized in hunting the "queen of the woods."
As for the choice of the rifle, there are no fixed rules. What matters in this case is not the weapon, but the shape and length of the barrel and the type of ammunition. The ideal shotgun should fire a maximum of two shots (the side-by-side or the over-and-under), because the wooded environment is too fraught to facilitate the typical third shot in semi-automatic shotguns. The effort of hunting woodcock must be compensated for by a very light shotgun, 12 or 20 gauge, with a short barrel and minimal choke.
In the hunt for the long-beaked lady, in fact, it is necessary to shoot at a short distance to be able to center the prey. Given the high risk of empty firing between the leaves of the clearing, it is better to use barrels ** (two stars) that allow greater dispersion of the shot or the use of dispersing cartridges in the undergrowth at a maximum length of 20/25 meters.