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Influence of Weather on the Eurasian Woodcock's Breeding Display

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Influence of Weather on the Eurasian Woodcock's Breeding Display Influence of Weather on the Eurasian Woodcock’s Breeding Display CHRISTOPHER J. HEWARD,1 Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, Burgate Manor, Fordingbridge, SP6 1EF. UK ANDREW LOWE, Birklands Ringing Group, 159 Sherwood Street, Market Warsop, Mansfield, NG20 0JX. UK GREG J. CONWAY, British Trust for Ornithology, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk, IP24 2PU. UK ANDREW N. HOODLESS, Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, Burgate Manor, Fordingbridge, SP6 1EF. UK ABSTRACT: Counts of displaying male Eurasian woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) form the basis for breeding Eurasian woodcock surveys in many regions across Europe and provide the only practical method of assessing the species’ abun- dance. This paper investigates the effect that weather may have on the results of these surveys, principally considering its influence upon Eurasian woodcock display behavior and detectability by surveyors. We assessed data from an annual Eurasian woodcock survey conducted in the Britain during 2004–2015 and correlated them with a number of weather vari- ables. This is supplemented by tracking data gathered from 19 male Eurasian woodcock to assess how weather might affect each individual’s decision to display. We found that counts of roding Eurasian woodcock were positively related to the amount of rainfall in the 2 weeks preceding the survey and negatively related to wind speed on the evenings that surveys were conducted. The likelihood that tagged male Eurasian woodcock displayed decreased in relation to wind speed and increased in relation to minimum air temperature. To guarantee that counts of displaying males provide a representative measure of abundance, we recommend that surveys consist of at ≥3 visits to each site within each year, that visits are spread as widely as possible across the peak displaying season, and that analyses are based on maximal counts rather than means to reduce the effects of surveys conducted in sub-optimal weather conditions. Proceedings of the American Woodcock Symposium 11: 209–216 KEY WORDS: abundance, census, Eurasian woodcock, national survey, rainfall, remote-sensing, Scolopax rusticola, tem- perature, UK The breeding display flight of the Eurasian woodcock Display flights are performed over roding grounds rang- (Scolopax rusticola) offers a unique opportunity to survey ing in size from 43 to 134 ha (Hirons 1980) and are accom- a species that is otherwise rarely observed. Eurasian wood- panied by a continuous repeated 2-part call (Hoodless et cocks’ cryptic plumage and behavior means that encoun- al. 2008). The roding grounds of several males may over- ter rates during the breeding season are generally low and lap (Hirons 1980) and the behavior appears to be a signal that traditional diurnal bird surveys, such as those used for female mate selection rather than male-male territori- for other woodland birds (e.g., Hewson et al. 2007, Hew- ality (Hirons 1980). Males perform their displays at dawn son and Noble 2009), are unrepresentative. The display and dusk between February and July, with roding behavior flight, known as ‘roding’, contains conspicuous visual and peaking during May and June (Hoodless et al. 2006). vocal signals that provide an effective means of assess- Counts of roding Eurasian woodcock form the basis of ing site occupancy and the relative abundance of Eur- breeding Eurasian woodcock surveys in several European asian woodcock. regions, including Switzerland, France, the Azores, and 1 email: [email protected] https://doi.org/10.24926/AWS.0127 CC BY 4.0 209 [5] singing-ground survey evaluation · Proceedings of the Eleventh American Woodcock Symposium western Russia (Estoppey 2001, Ferrand et al. 2008, Mach- We investigate the relationship between roding survey ado et al. 2008, Fokin and Blokhin 2013), where measures results and weather, using Eurasian woodcock survey data of Eurasian woodcock activity or ‘roding intensity’ are collected over a 12-year period. The influence that weather used as an indicator of Eurasian woodcock abundance. has on the display behavior of male Eurasian woodcock The Eurasian woodcock is a quarry species in most Euro- is assessed using the tracking data gathered from a sam- pean countries (Lutz 2005), and these surveys can be used ple of 19 male Eurasian woodcock tagged with archival to guide more sustainable hunting practices, particularly GPS loggers. where migrant and resident Eurasian woodcock popula- tions overlap. Methods A national survey of Eurasian woodcock in Britain, for REpeat RODing EurasiAn woodcock SuRveys instance, uses a calibration equation to convert surveys of Roding Eurasian woodcock surveys were conducted at roding activity into estimates of population size (Hood- woodland sites across Britain between 2004 and 2015. less et al. 2009), and found a 29% decline in the British These followed a large-scale national Eurasian wood- breeding population between 2003 and 2013 (Heward cock survey conducted in 2003 in which counts of rod- et al. 2015). Roding surveys are the only effective way of ing males were made at 807 randomly- elected 1 x 1-km detecting breeding population trends as alternative meth- squares across England, Scotland, and Wales (Hoodless ods conducted in winter, such as hunting bag analyses (e.g. et al. 2009). Observers taking part in the 2003 survey Seamans and Rau 2017), are confounded by the large num- were encouraged to continue their counts on a yearly bers of migrant Eurasian woodcock that winter alongside basis, resulting in a sub-sample of sites, all of which were British breeders (Hoodless et al. 2013). In Britain, volun- occupied by Eurasian woodcock, receiving repeated vis- tary guidelines for hunters were produced in an attempt to its in subsequent years. These were supplemented by minimize the impact of hunting on the declining resident 2 additional sites conducted in non-random squares. Ide- component of the wintering population (Game & Wild- ally, these repeat surveys would have been conducted at an life Conservation Trust 2017). Continued monitoring of entirely random selection of sites, but this was not possible the resident population will help gauge the effectiveness of without increasing the risk of reduced uptake or poor con- these measures and, if necessary, could form the grounds tinuity of surveys. for tighter control in the future. Each survey site was visited up to 3 times per year The British breeding Eurasian woodcock survey was between the start of May and the end of June, with each conducted at approximately 800 randomly selected sites visit ≥1 week apart. Volunteers selected a suitable count in 2003 and 2013 (Heward et al. 2015). A non-random point where roding could be observed, generally a wood- sub-sample of these sites, surveyed on an annual basis in land clearing or the intersection of 2 open trails where the intervening years, demonstrated a yearly decline of the absence of canopy cover allowed a clear view of the 4.9% (Heward et al. 2015). However, these annual surveys sky (British Trust for Ornithology 2013). The same count were also characterized by a high degree of annual vari- point was used in successive years unless the development ation, and weather was suggested as a possible cause for of surrounding vegetation meant that the point had to be these fluctuations. There is already evidence that roding moved to a new, more suitable location nearby. Volunteers activity can be influenced by weather conditions during recorded each separate occasion that a Eurasian woodcock the roding period, although Hoodless et al. (2006) suggest was seen or heard as a single ‘registration’. that these must be relatively severe before they have a sig- Volunteers recorded 3 weather variables for each visit. nificant effect. If more subtle variations in weather influ- Cloud cover was assigned to 1 of 3 broad categories: 0 – ence the roding behavior of Eurasian woodcock, these 33%, >33 – 66%, >66 – 100%. Wind strength was rated as need to be considered in the design and interpretation of calm, light, or moderate (equivalent to 0, 2, and 4, respec- roding Eurasian woodcock surveys. Moon phase may also tively on the Beaufort Scale). Rainfall was categorized as influence the behavior of crepuscular species, although this ‘no rain’, ‘drizzle’ (very light, continuous rain) or ‘show- has been demonstrated more clearly for mammals (Prugh ers’ (moderate, intermittent rain). Surveys were not con- and Golden 2014) than for birds (Mills 1986). We propose ducted if rain was persistent, or if the wind exceeded Beau- 4 ways in which weather might influence the results of rod- fort Scale 4. ing Eurasian woodcock surveys: 1) if weather has a direct We obtained daily rainfall data from the Centre for impact on survival or productivity in the previous breeding Ecology and Hydrology’s (CEH) CEH-GEAR dataset season, 2) if the prevailing weather prior to a survey affects (Tanguy et al. 2016) and, for each survey, we calculated the individual fitness and therefore the likelihood of display total rainfall on the day of the survey (‘survey day’ d = 0), behavior, 3) if weather during the survey period affects the total rainfall for the week preceding the day of the survey likelihood of display behavior, or 4) if weather during the (‘survey week’ = d - 7 to d - 1), and for the week before this survey period affects detectability by the surveyor. (‘previous week’ = d - 14 to d - 8). For the same periods, we 210 Displaying Eurasian Woodcock & Weather · Heward et al. extracted mean and minimum temperature from the Met Office’s UKCP09 dataset (Met Office 2017a). Both datasets are interpolated raster maps based on observations from national Met Office weather stations. We sourced moon phase data from a moon phase gen- erator available online (somacon.com 2011). This gives the date of each full moon and new moon within the study period. We then used these dates to assign surveys to 1 of 3 categories: if conducted on the night of a new moon or full moon, or within 3 days either side, they were classified as ‘new’ or ‘full,’ respectively, otherwise, they were classi- fied as ‘transitional’.
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