Use the "Explore Data" button in the menu above to access visualizations of the movements described below!
19 December 2022.
Most of our birds seem to be settling in to their wintering grounds, and have not made any major moves (with the exception of NS-2022-09).
- NS-2022-09 made the journey from a 3 week stopover area in Massachusetts to an island in northeastern North Carolina sometime between 12/8 and 12/13.
- QUE-2022-28 continued moving south into Florida, then about 200km west into a peninsula on the panhandle.
12 December 2022.
A couple more big (and I mean BIG) moves from our birds occurred this week!
- NS-2022-07 did not disappoint, making his landing in northwest Massachusetts. A couple days later, he continued south over Newark, New Jersey, all the way to North Carolina! He covered 1400+km over 5.5 days! This constitutes the bulk of his migration thus far.
- VT-2022-34 moved from her [stopover] location in Ohio, which she occupied for 23 days, flying over northern Kentucky to northwest Tennessee. She then continued on to central and then southern Arkansas. She covered approximately 1300km in less than a week!
07 December 2022.
- QUE-2022-28 moved 900+km over the course of 4 days, from her stopover spot in West Virginia to the South Carolina/Georgia border, then to within 20km of Florida.
05 December 2022.
This last week, our Nova Scotia birds stole the show, making the following movements:
- NS-2022-07 made an overwater migration, from the peninsula north of St. Mary's Bay across the Gulf of Maine this morning!
- NS-2022-10 moved south from Scranton, PA on 11/29 to North Carolina by 12/2.
- VT-2022-30 moved from the New Jersey Pinelands reserve on 11/30 to east of Richmond, VA by 12/2.
28 November 2022.
- NS-2022-07 moved north to the peninsula between St. Mary's Bay and the Bay of Fundy. We expect a water crossing soon!
- NS-2022-09 made big moves, from Pleasant Valley to Halifax, to southern Maine and on to Providence, Rhode Island, all within 3 days!
25 November 2022.
- NS-2022-08 continued moving south along the east coast of the US, covering 750km to Staten Island, NY, in less than 2 days!
- NS-2022-07 made his first migratory movements! He moved from Pleasant Valley to within 5km of the southwest coast of the province, about 25km south of NS-2022-08's coastal stopover.
23 November 2022.
- NS-2022-08 has moved from the west coast of Nova Scotia to the eastern coast of Maine, likely over the Gulf of Maine.
- VT-2022-30 continued southward, moving about 150km into the New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve.
21 November 2022.
Six of our birds have been stationary in warmer climes (Georgia, South & North Carolina, Virginia) for the last week, and most others have not moved much from stopover sites in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Jersey.
- VT-2022-30 finally initiated her migration! She moved from Buckner preserve in VT to New Jersey by 11/18.
- NS-2022-07 & 09 remain in Pleasant Valley, NS.
- NS-2022-08 remains in his stopover spot on the west coast of NS.
18 November 2022.
We are waiting on 2 Nova Scotia and 1 Vermont bird to initiate migration. Other movements include:
- NS-2022-08 returning to his stopover spot on the western coast of NS as of 11/16.
- NS-2022-10 moving from VT to near Scranton, PA by the morning of 11/16.
- VT-2022-31 moving about 30km further south of Raleigh, North Carolina.
16 November 2022.
Most birds remained at the same locations they occupied for our previous update, with the exception of:
- QUE-2022-28, who moved from Harrisburg, PA to central West Virginia by the morning of 11/16.
- VT-2022-31, who was likely flying near Chesapeake Bay in the early hours of 11/14, and that evening was on the ground near Raleigh, North Carolina.
14 November 2022.
Even more birds are on the move! The following birds began their migrations in the last few days:
- VT-2022-31 moved from Vermont to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
- VT-2022-33 moved through New Hampshire, Connecticut, and finally to Savannah, Georgia.
- VT-2022-34 took a different tack than other birds tagged this fall, moving westward from Whitehall, NY to Mansfield, Ohio.
Of note, a few birds mentioned below have made even further moves south, including:
- NS-2022-10 continues southwestern movements, moving through Maine and New Hampshire to south of Rutland, Vermont.
- VT-2022-29, from Pennsylvania to Virginia, then central Georgia.
10 November 2022.
Quite a few of our birds are making big moves! Here's a list of the latest migratory initiations:
- NS-2022-08 moved from Pleasant Valley to Yarmouth Nova Scotia.
- NY-2022-43 moved from NY to southern Arkansas.
- NY-2022-45 moved from NY to central Georgia.
- QUE-2022-28 moved from QC to Allentown Pennsylvania.
- QUE-2022-29 moved from QC to southeast NY with a stop in New Hampshire.
- VT-2022-35 flew south over southern NY and perhaps even New York City, landed in Hoboken New Jersey, and a couple days later was in South Carolina.
08 November 2022.
- VT-2022-32 moved 500km southwest from northeast Vermont to Philadelphia, PA between 11/2 and 11/4.
07 November 2022.
- NS-2022-10 continues his migration, leaving Halifax and ending up near Tracy, NB between the mornings of 11/3 and 11/4.
- QUE-2022-29 migrated approximately 230km south from Saguenay to Victoriaville, QC between 11/2 and 11/4.
04 November 2022.
We may have the beginnings of Nova Scotia migration! NS-2022-10, a juvenile male, left Pleasant Valley the evening of 11/2, moving 50+km south to Halifax by the early hours of 11/3. We eagerly await similar movements from the other birds in the province!
01 November 2022.
In the past couple of days, two additional birds have initiated their migrations, our first this fall from Quebec and Vermont!
- QUE-2022-27 was in Saguenay, Quebec on the evening of 10/27, and flew more than 1000km to the border of Pennsylvania & Maryland by the morning of 10/29. By 10/31, this juvenile male had moved over the border into Maryland.
- VT-2022-29, an adult male tagged in Silvio O. Conte wildlife refuge in Vermont, flew 500km or more from the refuge to north-central Pennsylvania between the evening of 10/27 and the morning of 10/29.
30 October 2022.
This week, we saw our first migration, by NY-2022-44! This adult female moved about 200km west from New York to Pennsylvania, then a few days later moved more than 1000km to Atlanta, Georgia! Check out her track below. Otherwise, most birds continue to make small ranging movements. This includes the birds tagged in Nova Scotia, whose data started uploading this week.
24 October 2022.
The woodcock seem to be increasingly restless, with about half of the birds that checked in this past week making multiple movements of 2+ km. NY-2022-38 moved 75km west into the Finger Lakes region of New York, and VT-2022-29, a bird tagged just last week, moved 13km west in Vermont.
With 7 new birds tagged last week in Vermont, and data from our recently tagged Nova Scotia birds set to upload very shortly, we're looking forward to following these birds' migratory journeys. Come back often to check on their progress!
17 October 2022.
This week data came in from 3 birds tagged in Quebec at the end of September, all of which are remaining near the field site, with QUE-2022-27 making a 3km ranging movement to the west. The birds from New York are also remaining more or less stationary, including NY-2022-47, whose last check in was in Pennsylvania. We expect increased movements imminently, stay tuned!
10 October 2022.
This week a few of our birds made larger movements than we have seen yet this autumn. NY-2022-47 seems to have begun her migration, moving more than 300km from central New York to southeastern Pennsylvania in the span of two days. VA-2022-100 also made a sizeable southward movement, about 35km southward within Ontario. NY-2022-43 made an 8km ranging movement to the west in New York, so perhaps she will be migrating south soon too!
We successfully deployed 5 transmitters on male birds in Nova Scotia last week, and hope to be just as/more successful in our Vermont deployments next week.
05 October 2022.
Apologies for the slight delay in migration updates, we are currently at a field site in Nova Scotia with Canadian Wildlife Service Biologist Bruce Pollard, and were joined this morning by waterfowl biologist Ted Barney. We successfully netted and tagged one bird yesterday and one today, a couple of very handsome hatch year males! We are hopeful this trend will continue and we will deploy all Nova Scotia transmitters in the next several days. This past week our familiar birds from New York and VA-2021-97 checked in, several of them more than once. In anticipation of migration, a few of the birds are making 2-3km ranging movements.
26 September 2022.
A mostly quiet week, with check-ins from New York birds and Virginia bird 2022-100. All birds are stationary in their respective locations, with most continuing in New York and no ranging movements observed. VA-2022-100 remains stationary in Ontario, and NY-2022-40 in Quebec.
19 September 2022.
Another week of check-ins from New York and Virginia birds, stationary in New York, New Brunswick, Quebec and Vermont. One bird, NY-2022-41, made a couple of 3km ranging movements in New York.
Our woodcock migration data has recently made its way into national products, specifically Audubon's Bird Migration Explorer.This educational tool allows users to contrast individual birds' migration tracks and abundances with connectivity and conservation threat data. The American Woodcock page heavily features EWMRC data, and woodcock are one of the most robustly tracked species on the website. Many, many thanks to all of our collaborators for making this possible!
12 September 2022.
All woodcock with active transmitters continue to show minimal movements, with no ranging movements observed since last week. VA-2022-100 checked in this week from Ontario, NY-2022-40 from Quebec, and a few other New York birds from New York state.
8 September 2022.
All woodcock with active transmitters have demonstrated minimal movements over the past month, with the exception of NC-2022-45, which made an approximately 4km ranging movement north in New Hampshire. This is typical pre-migratory behavior; as birds undergo physiological changes to prepare for migration, we expect the frequency of these behaviors to increase.
5 August 2022.
Roughly 18 transmitters remain on air from this spring and summer, and will continue to broadcast through the end of August. We're currently preparing for deployments in Vermont and Nova Scotia this fall; stay tuned for more information once migration begins!
Update 17 June 2022.
As of June 15th, all of our females have switched to a weekly schedule. This marks the end of active data collection for this spring. This season our collaborators have tagged 30 birds, which have recorded over 54,000 miles / 87,000 kilometers of migratory movements. These birds have laid 11 nests across 7 states and provinces which have been checked and confirmed by collaborators.
Many of these tags will continue to collect weekly locations throughout this summer and transmit those locations to Argos roughly once per month. They should be almost out of battery by the end of August, at which point they will go dormant. We've programmed them to resume collecting locations on December 18th so that we can determine if they've returned to their wintering locations (measuring site fidelity). We expect the last of this spring's transmitters to run out of battery in January 2023.
We'll have a detailed report of the data collected this spring, and preliminary results from the analyses that we're conducting using this data, when we release the latest EWMRC annual report in late summer or early fall. Until then, thank you to all collaborators who have tagged birds and checked nests this season!
Update 3 June 2022.
One new migratory movement was reported this week by AL-2022-17, which has spent the last month flying from Michigan to Manitoba. This makes it the second bird in project history to enter the province (the first to do so was AL-2020-03). Based on the late timing this may be a post-nesting dispersal movement, in which case we'd expect this hen to attempt to nest again shortly.
Our collaborators in New York and New Brunswick also reported two new nests this week; thank you Thomas Cunningham and Larissa Simulik!
Update 26 May 2022.
This week we saw a few short ranging movements in Maine and New York, most likely in response to failed breeding attempts. Most woodcock movements we see at this point are likely to be short ranging or dispersal events which occur infrequently during the summer. To better record these events while still conserving battery life, our male transmitters will shift to a one-location-per-week schedule starting tomorrow. This will result in a broadcast once every ~3 weeks.
Update 18 May 2022.
Nesting season is in full swing, and this week we have two new confirmed nests (Maine and New Brunswick) as well as 3 more suspected nests in Nova Scotia and Quebec. This includes a suspected nest from NC-2022-37 near Saint-Stanislas Quebec, which is the northernmost evidence of nesting that we've observed during the project and is outside of the known breeding range of American Woodcock as delineated by the Quebec Breeding Bird Atlas (thank you Mat Tetreault for looking this up!). Thank you to Bruce Pollard and Larissa Simulik, both of whom made long treks to check on these nests.
Update 9 May 2022.
This week brought quite a few ranging movements, as is typical in late spring along the northern edge of the woodcock's range. We have one new migratory initiation from VA-2022-100, which left its wintering in coastal Virginia to visit scenic Ontario. We also have one new suspected nest and 7 new deployments from our collaborators in the New York DEC.
Update 2 May 2022.
As migration for other birds starts to pick up, another spring woodcock migration is starting to trickle to a close. We have only one major movement to report this week (AL-2022-20), although a few birds on the northern extent of the woodcock's range are still making ranging movements. We'll still have a few more tag deployments this summer thanks to the New York DEC and SUNY Brockport, which have begun a breeding season study of woodcock in their state. Congrats to them on their first tag deployment last week!
Update 25 April 2022.
Birds are starting to find their breeding ranges throughout the northern extent of their range. We now have birds that seem to be settling into home ranges as far east as Nova Scotia and as far west as Minnesota. This week we also saw rare documentation of stopover site fidelity as PA-2021-39 migrated north through Pennsylvania on its way to Quebec.
Update 16 April 2022.
Lots of nesting news this week. Our collaborators at the University of Rhode Island confirmed a new nest location last Monday at Rhode Island's largest gasoline port. Another nest is suspected in Alabama (QUE-2021-25), although its location on private land will likely make it difficult to confirm. Virginia DWR has also gotten reports of an early brood in central Virginia. Based on the chicks' age, the hen likely initiated its nest in late March.
After several missed transmission windows, we were delighted to hear from a nest-tagged bird in South Carolina this week (SC-2022-25). The bird has since left its nest and begun migration, providing an example of how woodcock nesting in the winter range frequently migrate after losing their nests.
Update 8 April 2022.
This week we've had a larger movement of birds into the northern portion of the woodcock's breeding range, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Wisconsin, and northern Michigan. Our collaborators in North Carolina also located NC-2022-37's nest near Durham, North Carolina. It looks like the nest hatched successfully; hopefully the bird is now raising a brood! Thanks to Chris Baranski and Chad Watson for finding the nest.
Update 1 April 2022.
Quite a bit new this week. South Carolina has deployed a transmitter on a nesting hen, Louisiana birds have reported migratory movements including a brief stopover in the eastern management region, and NC-2022-36 has become our northernmost bird by crossing the Bay of Fundy into Nova Scotia. Additionally, Gary Costanzo of Virginia DWR confirmed a nesting attempt by VA-2022-100, but the nest was unfortunately depredated between March 23rd and 29th. We haven't heard from VA-2022-100 since the depredation; we'll see if it decides to migrate or stick around.
Update 24 March 2022.
Reports continue to trickle in of woodcock moving further north, including from a collaborator near Montreal. Our tagged birds are also showing continued migratory initiation in the south. Migration picked up in North Carolina this week, with more than half of tagged woodcock now having left the state. We've also received new transmissions from fall tagged birds which shed some light on winter movements in areas that we haven't deployed tags.
Update 18 March 2022.
The first woodcock have started to show up around the University of Maine, and our tagged birds aren't far behind. Our northernmost bird in the east has now reached the Maine coast, while in the Midwest our first bird has reached Michigan. Large concentrations of birds continue to bottle up at mid-Atlantic latitudes as they migrate from wintering areas in the deep south. We saw our first migratory initiation from Virginia this week, and migration is slowly beginning to pick up in North Carolina.
Update 9 March 2022.
Reports are starting to creep in of woodcock in southern Maine as warmer weather accelerates snowmelt in the northeast. Our GPS locations of tagged woodcock are lagging a little bit (our northernmost bird is still in Rhode Island), but we are starting to see new movements into Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio. Most birds have now left their capture sites in Alabama and Florida, although we have not seen much movement yet from North Carolina and Virginia birds.
Update 2 March 2022.
Migration initiation continues throughout the southwest, with new birds leaving South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Most of these movements are still ending at mid-latitudes (Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia) reflecting remaining snow cover in the northeast US that prohibits movements further north. Our northernmost bird is still RI-2021-53, which has spent several weeks in Rhode Island. We are expecting that some woodcock at wintering or stopover sites may attempt to nest soon; Colby has identified several potential nest sites in the southeast so far that collaborators are attempting to confirm. We'll post here when those nests are confirmed; much thanks to everyone who is putting in the legwork to find them!
Update 25 February 2022.
Migratory initiation has sped up considerably in the southern US, as about half of our birds from Alabama and Florida begin moving north. North Carolina and Virginia birds have remained stationary so far, although the Rhode Island birds have been engaging in some ranging/recursive movements in the mid-Atlantic. Our northernmost bird is currently in Rhode Island, although the rapidly-retreating snowpack could allow woodcock to move as far north as southern Maine at the moment. Expected snow throughout the northeast on Friday might knock back or slow down these migratory movements a bit.
Update 16 February 2022.
We're starting to see some movements north, suggesting the start of spring woodcock migration. So far we've seen two birds initiate migration (besides the recursive movements from last week), originating in Alabama and Virginia. The majority of the tags that are currently online were deployed in the fall; most of the spring tags have been deployed by our collaborators and should start broadcasting by the next update.
Update 9 February 2022.
Transmitter deployments are currently underway across the southern US; the Florida crew finished up last weekend, and the North Carolina and Alabama crews are currently deploying tags. All deployed tags should start broadcasting regularly by the end of next week. We're not seeing any large scale migratory initiation just yet, but RI-2021-53 and RI-2021-59 both made southerly and then recursive northerly movements around the end of January. These seem to be most likely the result of snowfall, and RI-2021-53 returned to the same area that it left after the snow melted. This is a repeat of a similar movement that RI-2021-53 made in mid January, suggesting that long mid-winter movements (> 80 miles) are a part of its strategy for avoiding snowfall.
Update 12 January 2022.
Things are slowing down fairly quickly now as woodcock settle in for the winter and our fall transmitters run low on battery life. These will be replaced by spring transmitters shortly, the first of which (from Rhode Island and Virginia) are already active. One transmitter has reported a movement since the last update, with RI-2021-53 migrating to Delaware in December and then Virginia in early January. Overall we've seen very little movement from birds since the large snowfall in the mid-Atlantic last week, perhaps indicating that woodcock were able to take shelter and weather the snow until it melted.
Update 4 January 2022.
Happy New Year! While we would traditionally think of this as a stationary season for our woodcock, the late onset of winter weather in much of the eastern US is prompting more movement than we would normally expect. The last two Pennsylvania birds, and one Vermont bird persisting in northern New Jersey, departed to the wintering range in the second and third weeks of December. Some movements are also occurring in the southern US, with PA-2021-42 flying from Tennessee to Louisiana and an attempted cross of the Chesapeake by PA-2021-42. This failed crossing of a water body is especially interesting; it's the second time we've observed this in our dataset (NC-2021-21 attempted to cross the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Spring 2021) and seems to suggest that some woodcock are treating water crossings as prospecting movements (i.e. they don't know what's on the other side), or potentially abort the attempt with unfavorable weather. We're also seeing some movements from earlier in the season that are now trickling in, especially from Rhode Island transmitters which have now entered frequent location mode.
For more information on the GPS-tracking technology that we use, visit our transmitter page.
Most of our birds seem to be settling in to their wintering grounds, and have not made any major moves (with the exception of NS-2022-09).
- NS-2022-09 made the journey from a 3 week stopover area in Massachusetts to an island in northeastern North Carolina sometime between 12/8 and 12/13.
- QUE-2022-28 continued moving south into Florida, then about 200km west into a peninsula on the panhandle.
12 December 2022.
A couple more big (and I mean BIG) moves from our birds occurred this week!
- NS-2022-07 did not disappoint, making his landing in northwest Massachusetts. A couple days later, he continued south over Newark, New Jersey, all the way to North Carolina! He covered 1400+km over 5.5 days! This constitutes the bulk of his migration thus far.
- VT-2022-34 moved from her [stopover] location in Ohio, which she occupied for 23 days, flying over northern Kentucky to northwest Tennessee. She then continued on to central and then southern Arkansas. She covered approximately 1300km in less than a week!
07 December 2022.
- QUE-2022-28 moved 900+km over the course of 4 days, from her stopover spot in West Virginia to the South Carolina/Georgia border, then to within 20km of Florida.
05 December 2022.
This last week, our Nova Scotia birds stole the show, making the following movements:
- NS-2022-07 made an overwater migration, from the peninsula north of St. Mary's Bay across the Gulf of Maine this morning!
- NS-2022-10 moved south from Scranton, PA on 11/29 to North Carolina by 12/2.
- VT-2022-30 moved from the New Jersey Pinelands reserve on 11/30 to east of Richmond, VA by 12/2.
28 November 2022.
- NS-2022-07 moved north to the peninsula between St. Mary's Bay and the Bay of Fundy. We expect a water crossing soon!
- NS-2022-09 made big moves, from Pleasant Valley to Halifax, to southern Maine and on to Providence, Rhode Island, all within 3 days!
25 November 2022.
- NS-2022-08 continued moving south along the east coast of the US, covering 750km to Staten Island, NY, in less than 2 days!
- NS-2022-07 made his first migratory movements! He moved from Pleasant Valley to within 5km of the southwest coast of the province, about 25km south of NS-2022-08's coastal stopover.
23 November 2022.
- NS-2022-08 has moved from the west coast of Nova Scotia to the eastern coast of Maine, likely over the Gulf of Maine.
- VT-2022-30 continued southward, moving about 150km into the New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve.
21 November 2022.
Six of our birds have been stationary in warmer climes (Georgia, South & North Carolina, Virginia) for the last week, and most others have not moved much from stopover sites in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Jersey.
- VT-2022-30 finally initiated her migration! She moved from Buckner preserve in VT to New Jersey by 11/18.
- NS-2022-07 & 09 remain in Pleasant Valley, NS.
- NS-2022-08 remains in his stopover spot on the west coast of NS.
18 November 2022.
We are waiting on 2 Nova Scotia and 1 Vermont bird to initiate migration. Other movements include:
- NS-2022-08 returning to his stopover spot on the western coast of NS as of 11/16.
- NS-2022-10 moving from VT to near Scranton, PA by the morning of 11/16.
- VT-2022-31 moving about 30km further south of Raleigh, North Carolina.
16 November 2022.
Most birds remained at the same locations they occupied for our previous update, with the exception of:
- QUE-2022-28, who moved from Harrisburg, PA to central West Virginia by the morning of 11/16.
- VT-2022-31, who was likely flying near Chesapeake Bay in the early hours of 11/14, and that evening was on the ground near Raleigh, North Carolina.
14 November 2022.
Even more birds are on the move! The following birds began their migrations in the last few days:
- VT-2022-31 moved from Vermont to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
- VT-2022-33 moved through New Hampshire, Connecticut, and finally to Savannah, Georgia.
- VT-2022-34 took a different tack than other birds tagged this fall, moving westward from Whitehall, NY to Mansfield, Ohio.
Of note, a few birds mentioned below have made even further moves south, including:
- NS-2022-10 continues southwestern movements, moving through Maine and New Hampshire to south of Rutland, Vermont.
- VT-2022-29, from Pennsylvania to Virginia, then central Georgia.
10 November 2022.
Quite a few of our birds are making big moves! Here's a list of the latest migratory initiations:
- NS-2022-08 moved from Pleasant Valley to Yarmouth Nova Scotia.
- NY-2022-43 moved from NY to southern Arkansas.
- NY-2022-45 moved from NY to central Georgia.
- QUE-2022-28 moved from QC to Allentown Pennsylvania.
- QUE-2022-29 moved from QC to southeast NY with a stop in New Hampshire.
- VT-2022-35 flew south over southern NY and perhaps even New York City, landed in Hoboken New Jersey, and a couple days later was in South Carolina.
08 November 2022.
- VT-2022-32 moved 500km southwest from northeast Vermont to Philadelphia, PA between 11/2 and 11/4.
07 November 2022.
- NS-2022-10 continues his migration, leaving Halifax and ending up near Tracy, NB between the mornings of 11/3 and 11/4.
- QUE-2022-29 migrated approximately 230km south from Saguenay to Victoriaville, QC between 11/2 and 11/4.
04 November 2022.
We may have the beginnings of Nova Scotia migration! NS-2022-10, a juvenile male, left Pleasant Valley the evening of 11/2, moving 50+km south to Halifax by the early hours of 11/3. We eagerly await similar movements from the other birds in the province!
01 November 2022.
In the past couple of days, two additional birds have initiated their migrations, our first this fall from Quebec and Vermont!
- QUE-2022-27 was in Saguenay, Quebec on the evening of 10/27, and flew more than 1000km to the border of Pennsylvania & Maryland by the morning of 10/29. By 10/31, this juvenile male had moved over the border into Maryland.
- VT-2022-29, an adult male tagged in Silvio O. Conte wildlife refuge in Vermont, flew 500km or more from the refuge to north-central Pennsylvania between the evening of 10/27 and the morning of 10/29.
30 October 2022.
This week, we saw our first migration, by NY-2022-44! This adult female moved about 200km west from New York to Pennsylvania, then a few days later moved more than 1000km to Atlanta, Georgia! Check out her track below. Otherwise, most birds continue to make small ranging movements. This includes the birds tagged in Nova Scotia, whose data started uploading this week.
24 October 2022.
The woodcock seem to be increasingly restless, with about half of the birds that checked in this past week making multiple movements of 2+ km. NY-2022-38 moved 75km west into the Finger Lakes region of New York, and VT-2022-29, a bird tagged just last week, moved 13km west in Vermont.
With 7 new birds tagged last week in Vermont, and data from our recently tagged Nova Scotia birds set to upload very shortly, we're looking forward to following these birds' migratory journeys. Come back often to check on their progress!
17 October 2022.
This week data came in from 3 birds tagged in Quebec at the end of September, all of which are remaining near the field site, with QUE-2022-27 making a 3km ranging movement to the west. The birds from New York are also remaining more or less stationary, including NY-2022-47, whose last check in was in Pennsylvania. We expect increased movements imminently, stay tuned!
10 October 2022.
This week a few of our birds made larger movements than we have seen yet this autumn. NY-2022-47 seems to have begun her migration, moving more than 300km from central New York to southeastern Pennsylvania in the span of two days. VA-2022-100 also made a sizeable southward movement, about 35km southward within Ontario. NY-2022-43 made an 8km ranging movement to the west in New York, so perhaps she will be migrating south soon too!
We successfully deployed 5 transmitters on male birds in Nova Scotia last week, and hope to be just as/more successful in our Vermont deployments next week.
05 October 2022.
Apologies for the slight delay in migration updates, we are currently at a field site in Nova Scotia with Canadian Wildlife Service Biologist Bruce Pollard, and were joined this morning by waterfowl biologist Ted Barney. We successfully netted and tagged one bird yesterday and one today, a couple of very handsome hatch year males! We are hopeful this trend will continue and we will deploy all Nova Scotia transmitters in the next several days. This past week our familiar birds from New York and VA-2021-97 checked in, several of them more than once. In anticipation of migration, a few of the birds are making 2-3km ranging movements.
26 September 2022.
A mostly quiet week, with check-ins from New York birds and Virginia bird 2022-100. All birds are stationary in their respective locations, with most continuing in New York and no ranging movements observed. VA-2022-100 remains stationary in Ontario, and NY-2022-40 in Quebec.
19 September 2022.
Another week of check-ins from New York and Virginia birds, stationary in New York, New Brunswick, Quebec and Vermont. One bird, NY-2022-41, made a couple of 3km ranging movements in New York.
Our woodcock migration data has recently made its way into national products, specifically Audubon's Bird Migration Explorer.This educational tool allows users to contrast individual birds' migration tracks and abundances with connectivity and conservation threat data. The American Woodcock page heavily features EWMRC data, and woodcock are one of the most robustly tracked species on the website. Many, many thanks to all of our collaborators for making this possible!
12 September 2022.
All woodcock with active transmitters continue to show minimal movements, with no ranging movements observed since last week. VA-2022-100 checked in this week from Ontario, NY-2022-40 from Quebec, and a few other New York birds from New York state.
8 September 2022.
All woodcock with active transmitters have demonstrated minimal movements over the past month, with the exception of NC-2022-45, which made an approximately 4km ranging movement north in New Hampshire. This is typical pre-migratory behavior; as birds undergo physiological changes to prepare for migration, we expect the frequency of these behaviors to increase.
5 August 2022.
Roughly 18 transmitters remain on air from this spring and summer, and will continue to broadcast through the end of August. We're currently preparing for deployments in Vermont and Nova Scotia this fall; stay tuned for more information once migration begins!
Update 17 June 2022.
As of June 15th, all of our females have switched to a weekly schedule. This marks the end of active data collection for this spring. This season our collaborators have tagged 30 birds, which have recorded over 54,000 miles / 87,000 kilometers of migratory movements. These birds have laid 11 nests across 7 states and provinces which have been checked and confirmed by collaborators.
Many of these tags will continue to collect weekly locations throughout this summer and transmit those locations to Argos roughly once per month. They should be almost out of battery by the end of August, at which point they will go dormant. We've programmed them to resume collecting locations on December 18th so that we can determine if they've returned to their wintering locations (measuring site fidelity). We expect the last of this spring's transmitters to run out of battery in January 2023.
We'll have a detailed report of the data collected this spring, and preliminary results from the analyses that we're conducting using this data, when we release the latest EWMRC annual report in late summer or early fall. Until then, thank you to all collaborators who have tagged birds and checked nests this season!
Update 3 June 2022.
One new migratory movement was reported this week by AL-2022-17, which has spent the last month flying from Michigan to Manitoba. This makes it the second bird in project history to enter the province (the first to do so was AL-2020-03). Based on the late timing this may be a post-nesting dispersal movement, in which case we'd expect this hen to attempt to nest again shortly.
Our collaborators in New York and New Brunswick also reported two new nests this week; thank you Thomas Cunningham and Larissa Simulik!
Update 26 May 2022.
This week we saw a few short ranging movements in Maine and New York, most likely in response to failed breeding attempts. Most woodcock movements we see at this point are likely to be short ranging or dispersal events which occur infrequently during the summer. To better record these events while still conserving battery life, our male transmitters will shift to a one-location-per-week schedule starting tomorrow. This will result in a broadcast once every ~3 weeks.
Update 18 May 2022.
Nesting season is in full swing, and this week we have two new confirmed nests (Maine and New Brunswick) as well as 3 more suspected nests in Nova Scotia and Quebec. This includes a suspected nest from NC-2022-37 near Saint-Stanislas Quebec, which is the northernmost evidence of nesting that we've observed during the project and is outside of the known breeding range of American Woodcock as delineated by the Quebec Breeding Bird Atlas (thank you Mat Tetreault for looking this up!). Thank you to Bruce Pollard and Larissa Simulik, both of whom made long treks to check on these nests.
Update 9 May 2022.
This week brought quite a few ranging movements, as is typical in late spring along the northern edge of the woodcock's range. We have one new migratory initiation from VA-2022-100, which left its wintering in coastal Virginia to visit scenic Ontario. We also have one new suspected nest and 7 new deployments from our collaborators in the New York DEC.
Update 2 May 2022.
As migration for other birds starts to pick up, another spring woodcock migration is starting to trickle to a close. We have only one major movement to report this week (AL-2022-20), although a few birds on the northern extent of the woodcock's range are still making ranging movements. We'll still have a few more tag deployments this summer thanks to the New York DEC and SUNY Brockport, which have begun a breeding season study of woodcock in their state. Congrats to them on their first tag deployment last week!
Update 25 April 2022.
Birds are starting to find their breeding ranges throughout the northern extent of their range. We now have birds that seem to be settling into home ranges as far east as Nova Scotia and as far west as Minnesota. This week we also saw rare documentation of stopover site fidelity as PA-2021-39 migrated north through Pennsylvania on its way to Quebec.
Update 16 April 2022.
Lots of nesting news this week. Our collaborators at the University of Rhode Island confirmed a new nest location last Monday at Rhode Island's largest gasoline port. Another nest is suspected in Alabama (QUE-2021-25), although its location on private land will likely make it difficult to confirm. Virginia DWR has also gotten reports of an early brood in central Virginia. Based on the chicks' age, the hen likely initiated its nest in late March.
After several missed transmission windows, we were delighted to hear from a nest-tagged bird in South Carolina this week (SC-2022-25). The bird has since left its nest and begun migration, providing an example of how woodcock nesting in the winter range frequently migrate after losing their nests.
Update 8 April 2022.
This week we've had a larger movement of birds into the northern portion of the woodcock's breeding range, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Wisconsin, and northern Michigan. Our collaborators in North Carolina also located NC-2022-37's nest near Durham, North Carolina. It looks like the nest hatched successfully; hopefully the bird is now raising a brood! Thanks to Chris Baranski and Chad Watson for finding the nest.
Update 1 April 2022.
Quite a bit new this week. South Carolina has deployed a transmitter on a nesting hen, Louisiana birds have reported migratory movements including a brief stopover in the eastern management region, and NC-2022-36 has become our northernmost bird by crossing the Bay of Fundy into Nova Scotia. Additionally, Gary Costanzo of Virginia DWR confirmed a nesting attempt by VA-2022-100, but the nest was unfortunately depredated between March 23rd and 29th. We haven't heard from VA-2022-100 since the depredation; we'll see if it decides to migrate or stick around.
Update 24 March 2022.
Reports continue to trickle in of woodcock moving further north, including from a collaborator near Montreal. Our tagged birds are also showing continued migratory initiation in the south. Migration picked up in North Carolina this week, with more than half of tagged woodcock now having left the state. We've also received new transmissions from fall tagged birds which shed some light on winter movements in areas that we haven't deployed tags.
Update 18 March 2022.
The first woodcock have started to show up around the University of Maine, and our tagged birds aren't far behind. Our northernmost bird in the east has now reached the Maine coast, while in the Midwest our first bird has reached Michigan. Large concentrations of birds continue to bottle up at mid-Atlantic latitudes as they migrate from wintering areas in the deep south. We saw our first migratory initiation from Virginia this week, and migration is slowly beginning to pick up in North Carolina.
Update 9 March 2022.
Reports are starting to creep in of woodcock in southern Maine as warmer weather accelerates snowmelt in the northeast. Our GPS locations of tagged woodcock are lagging a little bit (our northernmost bird is still in Rhode Island), but we are starting to see new movements into Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio. Most birds have now left their capture sites in Alabama and Florida, although we have not seen much movement yet from North Carolina and Virginia birds.
Update 2 March 2022.
Migration initiation continues throughout the southwest, with new birds leaving South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Most of these movements are still ending at mid-latitudes (Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia) reflecting remaining snow cover in the northeast US that prohibits movements further north. Our northernmost bird is still RI-2021-53, which has spent several weeks in Rhode Island. We are expecting that some woodcock at wintering or stopover sites may attempt to nest soon; Colby has identified several potential nest sites in the southeast so far that collaborators are attempting to confirm. We'll post here when those nests are confirmed; much thanks to everyone who is putting in the legwork to find them!
Update 25 February 2022.
Migratory initiation has sped up considerably in the southern US, as about half of our birds from Alabama and Florida begin moving north. North Carolina and Virginia birds have remained stationary so far, although the Rhode Island birds have been engaging in some ranging/recursive movements in the mid-Atlantic. Our northernmost bird is currently in Rhode Island, although the rapidly-retreating snowpack could allow woodcock to move as far north as southern Maine at the moment. Expected snow throughout the northeast on Friday might knock back or slow down these migratory movements a bit.
Update 16 February 2022.
We're starting to see some movements north, suggesting the start of spring woodcock migration. So far we've seen two birds initiate migration (besides the recursive movements from last week), originating in Alabama and Virginia. The majority of the tags that are currently online were deployed in the fall; most of the spring tags have been deployed by our collaborators and should start broadcasting by the next update.
Update 9 February 2022.
Transmitter deployments are currently underway across the southern US; the Florida crew finished up last weekend, and the North Carolina and Alabama crews are currently deploying tags. All deployed tags should start broadcasting regularly by the end of next week. We're not seeing any large scale migratory initiation just yet, but RI-2021-53 and RI-2021-59 both made southerly and then recursive northerly movements around the end of January. These seem to be most likely the result of snowfall, and RI-2021-53 returned to the same area that it left after the snow melted. This is a repeat of a similar movement that RI-2021-53 made in mid January, suggesting that long mid-winter movements (> 80 miles) are a part of its strategy for avoiding snowfall.
Update 12 January 2022.
Things are slowing down fairly quickly now as woodcock settle in for the winter and our fall transmitters run low on battery life. These will be replaced by spring transmitters shortly, the first of which (from Rhode Island and Virginia) are already active. One transmitter has reported a movement since the last update, with RI-2021-53 migrating to Delaware in December and then Virginia in early January. Overall we've seen very little movement from birds since the large snowfall in the mid-Atlantic last week, perhaps indicating that woodcock were able to take shelter and weather the snow until it melted.
Update 4 January 2022.
Happy New Year! While we would traditionally think of this as a stationary season for our woodcock, the late onset of winter weather in much of the eastern US is prompting more movement than we would normally expect. The last two Pennsylvania birds, and one Vermont bird persisting in northern New Jersey, departed to the wintering range in the second and third weeks of December. Some movements are also occurring in the southern US, with PA-2021-42 flying from Tennessee to Louisiana and an attempted cross of the Chesapeake by PA-2021-42. This failed crossing of a water body is especially interesting; it's the second time we've observed this in our dataset (NC-2021-21 attempted to cross the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Spring 2021) and seems to suggest that some woodcock are treating water crossings as prospecting movements (i.e. they don't know what's on the other side), or potentially abort the attempt with unfavorable weather. We're also seeing some movements from earlier in the season that are now trickling in, especially from Rhode Island transmitters which have now entered frequent location mode.
For more information on the GPS-tracking technology that we use, visit our transmitter page.
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