Use the "Explore Data" button in the menu above to access visualizations of the movements described below!
Update 15 December 2021.
The traditional fall migration period for woodcock is just about over, and we should be seeing the last few movements uploading to satellites over the next week or two. There are still at least four birds north of Virginia as of today; two in Rhode Island and two in Pennsylvania. Woodcock are known to persist in Rhode Island year-round, but the two left in Pennsylvania are probably the product of a very mild winter so far. A couple of interesting notes from this week's movements: VT-2021-25's most recent movement to Alabama puts it less than 2 miles away from PA-2021-34 (small world!), and VT-2021-23 is now on the edge of a saltwater lagoon in the Florida panhandle.
Update 8 December 2021.
Those birds which have initiated migration have mostly settled down at this point, although we're still seeing a few movements from birds trickling from Virginia and Maryland into the southeast. Two birds still haven't initiated migration in Pennsylvania, and at least five birds are left in Rhode Island (although two have begun possible pre-migratory movements). Some of the Rhode Island birds may end up staying through the winter, but we anticipate that the Pennsylvania birds will begin migration with the next heavy snowfall.
Update 29 November 2021.
Happy holidays! With snow falling over most of Canada and the northeastern US, the last few woodcock are getting some gentle encouragement to start their migration south. The last birds have left New Brunswick and Vermont, and all but two of the Pennsylvania-tagged birds have left the state. The first birds to begin migration have now effectively dispersed throughout the southeastern US and are settling into their winter ranges. We haven't seen much movement into the wintering portion of the Central Management Region yet (with the exception of Alabama), but a few birds in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana might still make it to Mississippi and Louisiana.
Update 18 November 2021.
This has been quite the week for our woodcock. Recent transmissions show a 100 mile recursive movement from South Carolina back to North Carolina, stopover near a former capture site in Cape May, New Jersey, and an 800 mile movement straight west across the US from Rhode Island to Indiana. It's not uncommon for fall migrants to creep west on their way down south, but a movement this far west without any decline in latitude is unprecedented.
Update 10 November 2021.
In the last week three birds left Pennsylvania, all heading rapidly south to Alabama, Georgia, and Kentucky. We're also seeing that several birds which have reached the wintering range are beginning to slow down; this might be a sign that they've reached their wintering location, or it could be due to an extended stopover. It will likely be a few weeks before we're certain. While our northernmost bird is still in New Brunswick, regular freezing nighttime temperatures are going to provide some significant incentive to start flying south over the next week or two.
Update 4 November 2021.
This week woodcock began to initiate migration in northeastern Vermont, and the Quebec birds continued their migration into the southeastern US. We also had two recursive movements around October 29th, when birds traveling through southern New York took an unusual turn west. This was a few days after the northeaster came through, so I'm wondering if some remnant weather patterns may have pushed them off course. Our southernmost woodcock is currently in Georgia, so the first birds should be reaching their wintering ranges within the next week or two.
Update 27 October 2021.
The majority of birds in Quebec and New Brunswick have now initiated migration, as well as a few birds from Vermont and one from Pennsylvania. These birds are still slowly working their way south through New England, with most migrants located at stopovers between Maine and Pennsylvania. We expect that birds in northern Vermont will begin to move south within the next week or two.
Update 22 October 2021.
Woodcock migration has officially started, with our first 3 birds beginning migratory movements between October 15th and 18th. These three birds are from Quebec, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Traditionally we'd expect that migration starts a little bit earlier at high latitudes, and we may see that the Quebec birds leave earlier over the next few weeks.
Update 8 October 2021.
We're in the "quiet before the storm" for woodcock migration, with ~32 new transmitters deployed but not uploading locations yet. We'll start hearing from them roughly once per week starting on October 15th when they transition to their normal fall schedules. In the meantime we don't seem to be missing much; only one transmitter has recorded a movement in recent weeks. VA-2021-92 made a 30 mile northward movement in Quebec at the end of September, which fits the pattern for pre-migratory ranging movements.
Update 20 September 2021.
New movements have been minimal since the two July migrants settled, with only one brief ranging movement from a West Virginia bird in August. Our collaborators just finished deploying 15 new transmitters in Rhode Island, which will remain dormant until this spring. Over the next few weeks we'll be deploying several dozen new transmitters in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Vermont, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia. These transmitters will then provide daily locations once migration starts ~ October 15th.
Update 9 August 2021.
Two birds (tagged in Alabama and South Carolina) reported early migratory movements back to their capture states in mid-July. These mid-summer movements are rare, but not unheard of; we'll likely see a few more birds start moving in August and September before the bulk of migratory movements start in mid-October. Meanwhile, our EWMRC collaborators are preparing for another season of fall captures. We anticipate new transmitters coming online in Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia in late September and early October.
Update 28 June 2021.
All of our transmitters have now switched to an infrequent schedule, allowing them to save battery life until fall migration. However, we're still seeing some mid-summer dispersal and exploratory movements. FL-2021-01 has made two exploratory movements so far, the most recent movement totaling >150 miles round trip, before returning to its capture site.
Update 18 May 2021.
Two new nests in Quebec and Maine this week, as well as a rare southerly movement as NC-2021-22 flies from New York to Pennsylvania. Now that spring migration is coming to a close, our male transmitters are switching to an infrequent transmission schedule to save battery life for next season. Our female transmitters will continue their frequent schedules for another month so that we can pinpoint early summer nests.
Update 4 May 2021.
We have confirmation of three more nests this week, from New York, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island. Unfortunately the New York and Quebec nests were depredated before our collaborators got there, but the Prince Edward Island bird was confirmed to have a brood. We're still getting a few more birds migrating from Ontario to Quebec, and conducting short ranging movements, particularly in Nova Scotia (typical for that region) and post-nest failure. However, the vast majority of the birds have settled down into what will likely be their summer ranges.
Update 27 April 2021.
Nesting initiation continues as more birds settle into the breeding range. Our collaborators found three new nests this week in Maine, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. The Maine bird held its nest despite two inches of new snowfall, but the nest was depredated by a bobcat hours before it was found by a state biologist. Some pretty rotten luck, although the bird survived to potentially nest again.
Update 20 April 2021.
Migration is slowing down a little but nesting is picking up. One of our birds, which attempted to nest in North Carolina around March 12th, unfortunately failed and flew to Rhode Island on March 26th/27th. However, our University of Rhode Island collaborators found it renesting with a thermal camera on Monday. This is the first (to my knowledge) recorded instance of a woodcock migrating and then renesting after nest failure, which occurs in very few species of birds. We're hoping that continued work this spring/summer (and retroactive analysis of prior woodcock spring movements) will help shed some light on how widespread this phenomenon is.
Update 13 April 2021.
Movements are starting to slow down a bit as birds reach the northern extent of the breeding range, as far west as Minnesota and as far east as Nova Scotia. We've had a new confirmed nest from a transmittered bird in Connecticut, located on a ~60 degree slope covered in phragmites on the side of a capped landfill. While this might not be traditional woodcock habitat, the woodcock's exceptional camouflage still makes it difficult to spot.
Update 31 March 2021.
After several weeks of warm weather, snowpacks in Maine and Canada have now retreated to the point where woodcock can return in large numbers. Three transmittered birds have now reached Maine, and five birds have reached Canada (the northernmost in Nova Scotia). We've also had two birds from Vermont and Pennsylvania return to their fall capture sites this week, near Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge and State College, Pennsylvania.
We've also had numerous recent nesting events in southern states, areas typically considered the 'nonbreeding range'. In addition to anecdotal reports of nests and broods throughout the south this month, our collaborators at the University of Rhode Island spotted nesting evidence among two transmittered birds last week. Collaborators in Virginia and North Carolina were able to check both and confirm that these birds were nesting.
Update 22 March 2021.
We're getting a little more northern progression as the snowpack melts, with our northernmost birds reaching Ontario and Michigan. This advance is much more apparent along the coast, as birds concentrate in New Jersey and Massachusetts. Migration initiation is also starting to speed up in the northern part of the wintering range, with roughly half of the North Carolina birds and almost all of the Maryland birds now moving north.
Update 16 March 2021.
Our migrating birds are pushing steadily north as warm weather causes the snowpack to recede. Our northernmost marked bird is currently outside Buffalo NY, although there have been anecdotal observations of woodcock arriving as far north as coastal New Brunswick. There are a couple of interesting patterns to note in this week's data. First, there's been a significant buildup of birds in southeastern Massachusetts, likely due to the heavy representation of Rhode Island birds in our data and the recent snowmelt in the area. Second, we're starting to see AL-2021-11 display some backtracking movements in the midwest, bouncing between Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. This type of movement is common in the spring as birds reach the snow line and get pushed further south due to weather or lack of foraging areas, and we'll likely see more of these movements when we get intermittent periods of winter weather.
Update 8 March 2021.
We've been seeing a lot more migration initiation in the past week, but as the snowpack remains pretty stationary there hasn't been all that much more northward progression. Our northernmost birds are still in coastal Massachusetts and Ohio, with a few more birds progressing into Indiana and New Jersey. All birds captured in Alabama, and most birds captured in South Carolina and Georgia, have now begun migration. North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland are the last three nonbreeding states where we haven't seen widespread initiation of migration yet.
Update 2 March 2021.
This week kicked off a lot of movements throughout the southeast. Birds have begun to leave Florida and Georgia at a steady clip, along with a few odd migrants from Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina. Although most of these birds have only moved a state or two north, one bird has made it to Cape Cod, another to Ohio, and a third has reached NYC.
As in previous years, the northern progression of birds closely matches with the receding snowpack. Given the cold weather that's anticipated over the next week in the northeast, these northern birds will probably remain stationary for a bit. However, given the ranging movements that we're seeing from birds still remaining in the southeast, we're likely to see more birds initiate migration shortly and head up towards the edge of the snowpack.
Update 25 February 2021.
We're just wrapping up transmitter deployments throughout the southeastern US, with new tags coming online in MD, NC, SC, FL, GA and AL. We're continuing to see some early northward movements, and most recently a female woodcock marked last fall in Rhode Island left her central Florida wintering area and is currently staging in South Carolina. If past year's are any indication, we expect things to really heat up, migration wise, during the first few weeks of March.
Update 16 February 2021.
Over the past few weeks project cooperators have been working hard to deploy transmitters throughout the southeastern US. New transmitters have been and will continue to come online from North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, and Florida over the coming days. We've already seen some of the first early movements northward by a few birds. Perhaps this is a sign of early spring?
Update 4 January 2021.
2020 came to a close, the majority of our marked birds had settled into wintering areas from the Mid-Atlantic, throughout the Southeast, and west along the Gulf Coast. We expect some periodic mid-winter movements as birds adjust to incoming weather systems, or begin to shuffle around in anticipation of spring migration. During this 'off season', our transmitters switch to a less-frequent location schedule to save battery life, and we will likely post fewer updates between now and the onset of spring, however the mapping tool below will continue to update as new data come in.
Beginning in late January, cooperators will begin deploying new transmitters on birds throughout the Southeast, and we look forward to a new cohort of marked birds to track on spring migration, which we expect will get underway sometime in mid-February.
The traditional fall migration period for woodcock is just about over, and we should be seeing the last few movements uploading to satellites over the next week or two. There are still at least four birds north of Virginia as of today; two in Rhode Island and two in Pennsylvania. Woodcock are known to persist in Rhode Island year-round, but the two left in Pennsylvania are probably the product of a very mild winter so far. A couple of interesting notes from this week's movements: VT-2021-25's most recent movement to Alabama puts it less than 2 miles away from PA-2021-34 (small world!), and VT-2021-23 is now on the edge of a saltwater lagoon in the Florida panhandle.
Update 8 December 2021.
Those birds which have initiated migration have mostly settled down at this point, although we're still seeing a few movements from birds trickling from Virginia and Maryland into the southeast. Two birds still haven't initiated migration in Pennsylvania, and at least five birds are left in Rhode Island (although two have begun possible pre-migratory movements). Some of the Rhode Island birds may end up staying through the winter, but we anticipate that the Pennsylvania birds will begin migration with the next heavy snowfall.
Update 29 November 2021.
Happy holidays! With snow falling over most of Canada and the northeastern US, the last few woodcock are getting some gentle encouragement to start their migration south. The last birds have left New Brunswick and Vermont, and all but two of the Pennsylvania-tagged birds have left the state. The first birds to begin migration have now effectively dispersed throughout the southeastern US and are settling into their winter ranges. We haven't seen much movement into the wintering portion of the Central Management Region yet (with the exception of Alabama), but a few birds in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana might still make it to Mississippi and Louisiana.
Update 18 November 2021.
This has been quite the week for our woodcock. Recent transmissions show a 100 mile recursive movement from South Carolina back to North Carolina, stopover near a former capture site in Cape May, New Jersey, and an 800 mile movement straight west across the US from Rhode Island to Indiana. It's not uncommon for fall migrants to creep west on their way down south, but a movement this far west without any decline in latitude is unprecedented.
Update 10 November 2021.
In the last week three birds left Pennsylvania, all heading rapidly south to Alabama, Georgia, and Kentucky. We're also seeing that several birds which have reached the wintering range are beginning to slow down; this might be a sign that they've reached their wintering location, or it could be due to an extended stopover. It will likely be a few weeks before we're certain. While our northernmost bird is still in New Brunswick, regular freezing nighttime temperatures are going to provide some significant incentive to start flying south over the next week or two.
Update 4 November 2021.
This week woodcock began to initiate migration in northeastern Vermont, and the Quebec birds continued their migration into the southeastern US. We also had two recursive movements around October 29th, when birds traveling through southern New York took an unusual turn west. This was a few days after the northeaster came through, so I'm wondering if some remnant weather patterns may have pushed them off course. Our southernmost woodcock is currently in Georgia, so the first birds should be reaching their wintering ranges within the next week or two.
Update 27 October 2021.
The majority of birds in Quebec and New Brunswick have now initiated migration, as well as a few birds from Vermont and one from Pennsylvania. These birds are still slowly working their way south through New England, with most migrants located at stopovers between Maine and Pennsylvania. We expect that birds in northern Vermont will begin to move south within the next week or two.
Update 22 October 2021.
Woodcock migration has officially started, with our first 3 birds beginning migratory movements between October 15th and 18th. These three birds are from Quebec, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Traditionally we'd expect that migration starts a little bit earlier at high latitudes, and we may see that the Quebec birds leave earlier over the next few weeks.
Update 8 October 2021.
We're in the "quiet before the storm" for woodcock migration, with ~32 new transmitters deployed but not uploading locations yet. We'll start hearing from them roughly once per week starting on October 15th when they transition to their normal fall schedules. In the meantime we don't seem to be missing much; only one transmitter has recorded a movement in recent weeks. VA-2021-92 made a 30 mile northward movement in Quebec at the end of September, which fits the pattern for pre-migratory ranging movements.
Update 20 September 2021.
New movements have been minimal since the two July migrants settled, with only one brief ranging movement from a West Virginia bird in August. Our collaborators just finished deploying 15 new transmitters in Rhode Island, which will remain dormant until this spring. Over the next few weeks we'll be deploying several dozen new transmitters in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Vermont, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia. These transmitters will then provide daily locations once migration starts ~ October 15th.
Update 9 August 2021.
Two birds (tagged in Alabama and South Carolina) reported early migratory movements back to their capture states in mid-July. These mid-summer movements are rare, but not unheard of; we'll likely see a few more birds start moving in August and September before the bulk of migratory movements start in mid-October. Meanwhile, our EWMRC collaborators are preparing for another season of fall captures. We anticipate new transmitters coming online in Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia in late September and early October.
Update 28 June 2021.
All of our transmitters have now switched to an infrequent schedule, allowing them to save battery life until fall migration. However, we're still seeing some mid-summer dispersal and exploratory movements. FL-2021-01 has made two exploratory movements so far, the most recent movement totaling >150 miles round trip, before returning to its capture site.
Update 18 May 2021.
Two new nests in Quebec and Maine this week, as well as a rare southerly movement as NC-2021-22 flies from New York to Pennsylvania. Now that spring migration is coming to a close, our male transmitters are switching to an infrequent transmission schedule to save battery life for next season. Our female transmitters will continue their frequent schedules for another month so that we can pinpoint early summer nests.
Update 4 May 2021.
We have confirmation of three more nests this week, from New York, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island. Unfortunately the New York and Quebec nests were depredated before our collaborators got there, but the Prince Edward Island bird was confirmed to have a brood. We're still getting a few more birds migrating from Ontario to Quebec, and conducting short ranging movements, particularly in Nova Scotia (typical for that region) and post-nest failure. However, the vast majority of the birds have settled down into what will likely be their summer ranges.
Update 27 April 2021.
Nesting initiation continues as more birds settle into the breeding range. Our collaborators found three new nests this week in Maine, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. The Maine bird held its nest despite two inches of new snowfall, but the nest was depredated by a bobcat hours before it was found by a state biologist. Some pretty rotten luck, although the bird survived to potentially nest again.
Update 20 April 2021.
Migration is slowing down a little but nesting is picking up. One of our birds, which attempted to nest in North Carolina around March 12th, unfortunately failed and flew to Rhode Island on March 26th/27th. However, our University of Rhode Island collaborators found it renesting with a thermal camera on Monday. This is the first (to my knowledge) recorded instance of a woodcock migrating and then renesting after nest failure, which occurs in very few species of birds. We're hoping that continued work this spring/summer (and retroactive analysis of prior woodcock spring movements) will help shed some light on how widespread this phenomenon is.
Update 13 April 2021.
Movements are starting to slow down a bit as birds reach the northern extent of the breeding range, as far west as Minnesota and as far east as Nova Scotia. We've had a new confirmed nest from a transmittered bird in Connecticut, located on a ~60 degree slope covered in phragmites on the side of a capped landfill. While this might not be traditional woodcock habitat, the woodcock's exceptional camouflage still makes it difficult to spot.
Update 31 March 2021.
After several weeks of warm weather, snowpacks in Maine and Canada have now retreated to the point where woodcock can return in large numbers. Three transmittered birds have now reached Maine, and five birds have reached Canada (the northernmost in Nova Scotia). We've also had two birds from Vermont and Pennsylvania return to their fall capture sites this week, near Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge and State College, Pennsylvania.
We've also had numerous recent nesting events in southern states, areas typically considered the 'nonbreeding range'. In addition to anecdotal reports of nests and broods throughout the south this month, our collaborators at the University of Rhode Island spotted nesting evidence among two transmittered birds last week. Collaborators in Virginia and North Carolina were able to check both and confirm that these birds were nesting.
Update 22 March 2021.
We're getting a little more northern progression as the snowpack melts, with our northernmost birds reaching Ontario and Michigan. This advance is much more apparent along the coast, as birds concentrate in New Jersey and Massachusetts. Migration initiation is also starting to speed up in the northern part of the wintering range, with roughly half of the North Carolina birds and almost all of the Maryland birds now moving north.
Update 16 March 2021.
Our migrating birds are pushing steadily north as warm weather causes the snowpack to recede. Our northernmost marked bird is currently outside Buffalo NY, although there have been anecdotal observations of woodcock arriving as far north as coastal New Brunswick. There are a couple of interesting patterns to note in this week's data. First, there's been a significant buildup of birds in southeastern Massachusetts, likely due to the heavy representation of Rhode Island birds in our data and the recent snowmelt in the area. Second, we're starting to see AL-2021-11 display some backtracking movements in the midwest, bouncing between Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. This type of movement is common in the spring as birds reach the snow line and get pushed further south due to weather or lack of foraging areas, and we'll likely see more of these movements when we get intermittent periods of winter weather.
Update 8 March 2021.
We've been seeing a lot more migration initiation in the past week, but as the snowpack remains pretty stationary there hasn't been all that much more northward progression. Our northernmost birds are still in coastal Massachusetts and Ohio, with a few more birds progressing into Indiana and New Jersey. All birds captured in Alabama, and most birds captured in South Carolina and Georgia, have now begun migration. North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland are the last three nonbreeding states where we haven't seen widespread initiation of migration yet.
Update 2 March 2021.
This week kicked off a lot of movements throughout the southeast. Birds have begun to leave Florida and Georgia at a steady clip, along with a few odd migrants from Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina. Although most of these birds have only moved a state or two north, one bird has made it to Cape Cod, another to Ohio, and a third has reached NYC.
As in previous years, the northern progression of birds closely matches with the receding snowpack. Given the cold weather that's anticipated over the next week in the northeast, these northern birds will probably remain stationary for a bit. However, given the ranging movements that we're seeing from birds still remaining in the southeast, we're likely to see more birds initiate migration shortly and head up towards the edge of the snowpack.
Update 25 February 2021.
We're just wrapping up transmitter deployments throughout the southeastern US, with new tags coming online in MD, NC, SC, FL, GA and AL. We're continuing to see some early northward movements, and most recently a female woodcock marked last fall in Rhode Island left her central Florida wintering area and is currently staging in South Carolina. If past year's are any indication, we expect things to really heat up, migration wise, during the first few weeks of March.
Update 16 February 2021.
Over the past few weeks project cooperators have been working hard to deploy transmitters throughout the southeastern US. New transmitters have been and will continue to come online from North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, and Florida over the coming days. We've already seen some of the first early movements northward by a few birds. Perhaps this is a sign of early spring?
Update 4 January 2021.
2020 came to a close, the majority of our marked birds had settled into wintering areas from the Mid-Atlantic, throughout the Southeast, and west along the Gulf Coast. We expect some periodic mid-winter movements as birds adjust to incoming weather systems, or begin to shuffle around in anticipation of spring migration. During this 'off season', our transmitters switch to a less-frequent location schedule to save battery life, and we will likely post fewer updates between now and the onset of spring, however the mapping tool below will continue to update as new data come in.
Beginning in late January, cooperators will begin deploying new transmitters on birds throughout the Southeast, and we look forward to a new cohort of marked birds to track on spring migration, which we expect will get underway sometime in mid-February.
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