The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Stuart posted his results from Willingham Woods a week ago, and I've now done my first round of 2014 visits at the four sites I covered in 2013. Numbers of contacts as follows (with 2013 counts in brackets):

Crowle Moors: 0 (0)
Laughton Forest west: 11 inc one of 2 birds (11 inc one of 4 birds)
Laughton Forest east: 5 (5)
Stonepit Wood: 4 (14)

It surprises me that I don't see more at Crowle where in the past there were more - could the birch removal be a factor? I have no idea why numbers were lower at Stonepit Wood, which doesn't seem to have changed, though of course decline is the national picture. It will be interesting to see what happens on the next visits.

Mid and NW Lincolnshire have retained isolated concentrations of breeding woodcock against the background of national decline (see http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/wo ... ey/results).

20+ years ago I used to watch roding woodcock in Roxton Wood (Near Immingam) and photographed their nests/eggs. I haven't been there for years. I wonder if they are still there as it will have matured greatly since then?

I completed my final survey at Warren Wood (Willingham Woods) last night. The results of the three visits during May and June were as follows with 2013 totals in brackets:

Visit 1 - 4 (3)
Visit 2 - 5 (5)
Visit 3 - 6 (6)

The maximum number of birds seen was 2 on Visit 3 in both years - a remarkably consistent result.

I've now finished coverage at the four places I've counted woodcocks this year. Like Stuart, I've found similar totals to those found in 2013, and in 2003, though not quite so consistent as his. The totals below are for each visit, in order: counts of sightings/hearings for 2014, (2013 in round brackets), [2003 in square brackets]

Crowle Moors
visit 1 - 0, (0), [5 including one of 2 birds]
visit 2 - 0, (1), [0]
visit 3 - 0, (0), [0]
NB the 2013 & 2104 counts were at a different location from that which I counted in 2003, and I don't have 2003 data for this year's location.

Laughton Forest (W)
visit 1 - 11 including one of 2 birds, (11 including one of 4), [8]
visit 2 - 8 including one of 2, (7), [13]
visit 3 - 12 including one of 2, (11), [11]

Laughton Forest (E)
visit 1 - 5, (5), [4]
visit 2 - 6, (5), [4]
visit 3 - 9, (4), [6]

Stonepit Wood
visit 1 - 4, (15), [11]
visit 2 - 12 including one of 2, (10), [10 including two of 2 birds]
visit 3 - 8, (17 including two of 2 birds), [6 including one of 2 birds]

These counts were for the BTO/GCWT survey. It was good to have sites which mostly still hold woodcock (even if they were always outnumbered by mosquitoes) and there was always something else to see or hear such as deer, owls and nightjars.