The Woodcock Watch project has been given a brand new website with a fresh look for 2016, coinciding with the launch of four new woodcock .
You can view the new website here >
The new birds were tagged during the last few weeks. Nellie II and Sir John were caught and tagged at the same site in North Norfolk that, in previous years, Wensum, Monkey IV and Nellie I were tagged.
Thorn was tagged in Lincolnshire, whilst Fonthill Abbie II was tagged in Wiltshire. We’ll get to know these new birds in future blogs as they make a start on their spring migrations.
These four new birds will join ten existing birds from 2013, ‘14 and ‘15 that are still transmitting on a regular basis. Existing birds that are not transmitting regularly have been removed from the current Woodcock Watch map, but if their tags recharge and start sending data they will be reinstated. It’s perfectly possible that this will happen in the coming weeks – as it did, just recently, when Monkey IV and Irina suddenly resurfaced in the British Isles.
The launch of the new website comes just in time for the spring migration, as we see the first of our birds leaving their wintering sites and beginning the long flight back to the breeding grounds.
Doc, who migrated between Ireland and Sweden last spring has made the first step by hopping across the Celtic Sea and is currently in Devon. If Doc repeats last year’s route we would expect him to fly west through Southern England and across the English Channel then up into Sweden via Germany and Denmark.