Invitation to join an evening Woodcock Survey 

We have been doing the BTO Woodcock Survey since its inception in 2003. This involves 3 evenings in May and June counting the number of roding flights over our observation point in Eaves Wood, Silverdale. LDBWS Committee has suggested that there are members of the Society who would be interested in joining us for an evening, and we would like to invite up to 4 members to join us for each of the second and third of our 2021 sessions.

Each session lasts for 75 minutes, starting 15 minutes before sunset, and finishing 1 hour after sunset. As we require dry and relatively still conditions dates can only be fixed 2 or 3 days in advance on the basis of weather forecasts. We will be targeting the 7 days starting 16^th May, and 8^th June, and would need to confirm at short notice the exact dates and times with those attending. We would suggest meeting in NT Eaves Wood car park ¾  hour before sunset, and would be back at the car park within 1½ hours after sunset.

Attendees would need to be comfortable with walking on unmade-up limestone paths in the dark (torch recommended). We cannot guarantee that woodcock will appear. Out of the 55 survey evenings undertaken 11 have had no woodcock, and a further 18 only 1 or 2. We recorded 5 contacts during our initial 2021 session on 1^st May.

We would invite anyone who is interested to register the dates they are interested in with LDBWS via [email protected]. Names and email addresses can then be forwarded to us, and we can arrange groups, on a first come first served basis, direct with those attending.