First Woodcock of 2016

Last night I decided to go to one of my sites to see if there were any Woodcock about. The rain in my part of Wales has been daily since November the 2nd last year, consequently the ground was sodden and surface water was lying everywhere.

Not deterred I decided to have a go. Walking down the path a Woodcock was feeding on the path edge but appeared startled and flew away within a few steps of my approach. Encouraged it wasn't until I was at the end of the last field I spotted another lying amongst clumps of Junctus. The wind had picked up and it had started to rain again which I used to my advantage and squelched my may very slowly to the bird with the wind and rain in my face and was fortunate enough to catch it.

An adult bird with a wing length of 211mm and weight of 345gms

After processing the bird I placed it on the grass and it stayed there for a while enabling a me to take a couple more pictures.