Monitoring Down the American Woodcock

Practically all migratory birds migrate first, then nest as soon as they arrive the place they’re going. To do in any other case can be counter-intuitive, a course of requiring an amazing quantity of vitality abruptly. However the American woodcock—a migratory shorebird discovered within the jap United States—might just do that.

Generally known as itinerant breeding, it’s a habits so uncommon solely about 10 birds, together with the woodcock, are believed to follow it. For the primary time, a analysis group has discovered direct proof of it. Their research, led by current College of Rhode Island PhD Colby Slezak, was revealed within the Proceedings of the Royal B Society in April.

On this Q&A, Slezak, now a biologist specializing in migratory birds for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, tells how the analysis took place and why it issues for efforts to assist preserve the hen, whose populations have declined because the Sixties.

How did you come to analysis the American woodcock?

My advisor Scott McWilliams had been working long-term woodcock analysis in Rhode Island since about 2010. He’s expanded this venture to work with the Japanese Woodcock Migration Analysis Cooperative, which is headed out of the College of Maine. Scott has been working with them to tag American woodcock. First he tracked birds with antennas regionally, however with the development of GPS know-how, now you can monitor woodcock and different birds throughout their migration.

This collaborative venture is within the Atlantic flyway, all the best way from Atlantic Canada all the way down to Florida. We’ve been working with completely different state and federal businesses, after which the College of Maine and the College of Rhode Island are the 2 universities which have grad college students really conducting this analysis.

I began as a grad pupil in 2019, engaged on this venture in 2021 and 2022. However as a result of it is a bigger collaborative, I used to be in a position to depend on birds from different states that have been tagged as a part of this bigger cooperative from 2018 to 2022.

What did that tagging course of appear like?

You exit in fields, the place woodcock roost at tonight—most birds roost in bushes, however woodcock roosts out in fields on the bottom. You seize them on the bottom after which take some morphometric measurements—issues like invoice size, the width of the outer three primaries [or wing feathers], for instance. We put the tag on, which normally takes about two folks: one individual holding the hen, one individual really becoming the transmitter. With the transmitter on, the hen can stroll and fly utterly regular. Finally [the transmitters] fall off.

What have been you hoping to be taught from monitoring the birds?

I had hoped that by having GPS tags, I might monitor the birds to their wintering floor, after which within the spring, I’d be capable of discover their nests once more [in Rhode Island] as a result of I might comply with their GPS places.

However the second yr, these females didn’t come again to Rhode Island, which is how we sprang upon this concept that these females might go completely different locations annually. So we began counting on [members of the cooperative in other states] to exit and attempt to confirm field-nesting makes an attempt.

For a number of of those birds, we had somebody exit, they discovered the nest, after which I noticed [via GPS data] that that hen migrated and seemed prefer it was nesting once more. That’s how we first acquired the concept that these birds are transferring completely different locations, they usually’re additionally in some instances transferring actually far between nesting instances. Then I used that bigger dataset to determine this at a a lot bigger scale.

How uncommon is that this sample?

It’s been anticipated in about 10 species. However woodcock are the one species that now we have direct proof of, which means we discovered a nest in a single location, like, let’s say, Virginia, after which we discovered one other nest all the best way up in Maine. Quite a lot of these different species are fairly small although, and we don’t have GPS know-how [small enough] but. So, it was just a little bit luck, and just a little bit the truth that woodcock are a bigger species and have GPS tags [available].

Why would this sample be uncommon?

So standard life historical past principle would say that birds have developed emigrate within the spring and fall. They’re following the seasonal availability of sources, leaving chilly areas of the nation to comply with meals availability and survive winters. Then they return north within the spring to breed as a result of there’s this abundance of meals when issues inexperienced up. They’ve additionally separated these durations: As soon as spring migration ends, they will begin reproducing. They will’t do each without delay as a result of they’re so energetically costly.

However woodcock listed here are combining these two issues. They’re going to their wintering grounds within the winter, after which they’re beginning to breed as they transfer north within the spring.

Why would they do this?

We don’t know but. We expect that woodcock are in all probability transferring north in response to nest failure. So if their nest fails, or if their chicks die, they’ll in all probability transfer farther north and nest once more. But it surely’s attainable that there are woodcock having utterly profitable nests, the chicks are fledging, after which the woodcock strikes north to nest once more that very same yr. We don’t know. However both means, it’s wonderful that they’ve taken these two durations of the annual cycle and mixed them.

One of many locations you tagged birds was the Francis Carter Nature Conservancy Protect in Rhode Island, a haven for a lot of struggling hen species. How does understanding nesting patterns have an effect on potential conservation efforts for these birds?

I feel what this research exhibits is that having these websites [like the preserve] dispersed throughout the panorama is necessary, particularly after we’ve degraded a lot of the habitat that these birds traditionally have been counting on. They actually do want an expansion of various locations the place they will nest as they make their migrations northward within the spring.

Woodcock are sometimes managed on the state stage. However this sort of research exhibits you could’t handle for Rhode Island-breeding woodcock, you’re actually managing for the woodcock inhabitants as an entire. In anybody yr you could have woodcock from Florida nesting in Rhode Island, or woodcock from Virginia. So, you actually must create woodcock habitat and keep it throughout a variety.

What sort of habitats are we speaking about?

One of many actually necessary issues for woodcock nesting is the male’s aerial courtship shows. For that they want younger forests. However woodcock additionally require these extra mature forest areas for feeding and wetlands as a result of they like moist soils. They eat a number of earthworms, and their payments are tailored for feeding beneath the soil. So in the event you take a look at woodcock administration plans, they typically embody this mosaic of various habitats.

Extra from TNC Journal

A model of this Q & A ran in Nature Conservancy journal’s Situation 4, 2024. Learn different tales from that subject — together with a take a look at California’s “Bay of Life.”

A earlier grad pupil in Scott’s lab Roger Masse confirmed that there was larger songbird range in websites the place woodcock administration was occurring. Between that and the truth that they use such a range of habitats, they’re actually a very good species for attempting to make the case that in the event you handle for woodcock you possibly can assist a bunch of different species within the course of.