Saturday 22 November 2008

Flighting woodcock with Mark


IMG_8296, originally uploaded by james.marchington.

Thursday afternoon I headed down to Kent to flight woodcock with Mark Gilchrist. I always thought woodcock flying around at dusk were 'roding' and it wasn't really cricket to shoot them, but Mark put me straight. Roding is the mating flight that they do on their breeding grounds in the spring. At this time of year, what they're doing at dusk is flying out of the woods where they've laid up during the day, and heading off for their feeding areas - in this case a wet field where they can probe around for worms etc in the soft soil. Anyway, no luck for me - the woodcock didn't come my way!

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