Woodcock hunting: “Who knows where it comes from”, everyone has asked himself at least once in his life, after having put a fabulous woodcock in the game bag. Today it is possible to answer this curiosity.
Talking about woodcock the curiosity of hunters and scholars becomes almost morbid and often the most recurring questions that are asked are related to the place of origin of a woodcock or another. Until recently the only way to have a certain answer regarding the place of origin was represented by ringing; recently science has given us some surprises and some rather precise answers regarding the places of origin of the French and Spanish woodcocks.
The principle that has been used can be defined as rather safe since it is based on the laboratory analysis of an unmistakable and natural marker. In fact, scholars have taken into consideration the dosage of deuterium present in the feathers of birds.
For the layman, deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen and given that this is diffused in different ways in different parts of the globe, based on the level obtained during the analysis it was possible to create a more or less precise map relating to the origin. of the dear woodcocks. 
A few clarifications before proceeding and giving the definitive results of the research is a must. It is important to say that for a serious analysis it is essential to have a pen from a young specimen, which has not yet known any moult: only in that way will it be possible to analyze the deuterium characterizing its homeland, fixed on the feathers. In fact, if feathers grown after one or a few moults were to be analyzed, the results would certainly be distorted. Another clarification that it is important to share is related to the accuracy of the studies: it is good to remember in fact that the analyzes cannot give precise locations, since the boundaries that can be hypothesized are rather blurred: this does not mean that the deuterium fixed on the feathers is able to give us with absolute certainty a reference area, not accurate to the centimeter, but always better than nothing you can find? All the feathers taken from very young specimens of French and Spanish woodcocks were sent to Canada, at the Saskatoon isotope facility which soon gave its results. 
France. In total, 987 feathers of wintering subjects were analyzed between 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 and another 1875 of subjects collected during the autumn transit. The results were quite clear: the vast majority of specimens came from the Baltic Regions and Western European Russia, a good percentage came from Central Europe and a very small part were sedentary, born and raised in France. 
Spain. The subjects analyzed were 802 (for the same period). In this case, the majority of woodcocks came from Central Eastern Europe, while a small part came from the Baltic regions.
The rather interesting results confirm the trends already intuited thanks to the ringings and tell something more and new about the habits of the queen of the woods, a great traveler and still quite mysterious and attractive today.
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