Bog Myrtle & Peat

I’ve been looking forward to the November full moon since I had my first tentative go at flighting woodcock three weeks ago. I caught the tail-end of the first migrants of the winter, but was determined to get a better look at them when they came in force. Seeing quite a few turn up on Thursday night, I decided to have another foray last night with the shotgun to see what was going on. I stood in the same place, the wind was in the same direction and the weather was almost identical, but where I had seen six or seven woodcock on Thursday, I saw nothing whatsoever.

This whole flighting business certainly is a bit of a riddle. Their routes and flightpaths are certainly quite easy to find, but if there are no birds using them then all my reconnaissance is a fairly pointless excerise. If it were anything but woodcock, I’d probably have given up by now. As it is, I’m hooked.

The last few days have been good and frosty, and with the moon growing fatter every night, it’ll be interesting to see if there is a sudden influx of birds. I know that there were plenty over at Langholm (about forty miles east of the Chayne) at the end of last week, but aside from the odd report here and there, pinpointing their movements is proving to be quite a challenge. What else can you expect from a bird that is small, silent, invisible and nocturnal?