NNeewwsslleetttteerr Number 38 December 2012 Newsletter 38 Compiled by Yves Ferrand Coordinator Office national de la chasse et de la faune sauvage Research Department Migratory Birds Unit 39, Bd Albert Einstein CS 42355 44323 Nantes Cedex - France December 2012 This Newsletter is published with financial assistance of Office national de la chasse et de la faune sauvage This Newsletter seeks to be a contact organ to inform the members of the Woodcock and Snipe Specialist Group (WSSG), a research unit of Wetlands International (WI) and of IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The subjects of WSSG are species of the genera Scolopax , Gallinago and Lymnocryptes that in several respects differ remarkably from all other wader species. For this reason a separate research unit was established. CONTENTS Page Editorial …………………………………………………………………………………...………………………………….. 3 2012 Belarus Woodcock Report …………………………………………………………………………………………...4 EDWARD MONGIN , YURI BOGUTSKI & ELENA DAVIDYONOK Woodcock report from Hungary – Spring 2012………………………………………………………………………...6 GERGELY SCHALLY , LÁSZLÓ SZEMETHY & NORBERT BLEIER Eurasian Woodcock ( Scolopax rusticola ) monitoring in Buda Mountain (Hungary)…………………………….9 NORBERT BLEIER , ZSOMBOR FÁCZÁNYI & GERGELY SCHALLY Monitoring of Common Snipe populations in European Russia in 2012 …………………………………….…..13 YURI BLOKHIN Incubation of Jack Snipe …………………………………………………………………………………….……………20 VLADIMIR MOROZOV Roding and Woodcock hunting in the Vologda region, North Russia …………………………………………....21 YURI BLOKHIN , SERGEI FOKIN & ILYA KAPLIN 2012 European Russia roding census and Woodcock ringing report …………………………………………....29 SERGEI FOKIN , YURI BLOKHIN , PETR ZVEREV , YURI ROMANOV & MARINA KOZLOVA Evaluation of the 2011/12 Woodcock hunting season in France …………………………………………………..32 JEAN -PAUL BOIDOT & GERARD AUROUSSEAU 2011-2012 French Woodcock report …………………………………………………………………………………….34 FRANÇOIS GOSSMANN , CLAUDINE BASTAT , DAMIEN COREAU & YVES FERRAND 2011-2012 French Snipes report …………………………………………………………………………………………37 GILLES LERAY , PATRICE FÉVRIER & YVES FERRAND 2011-2012 Woodcock hunting season in mainland Portugal ……………………………………………………….47 DAVID GONÇALVÈS , TIAGO RODRIGUES , ANDRÉ VERDE & MANUEL RUSSO Faeroe snipe ( Gallinago g. faeroeensis ) and Wilson’s snipe ( G. delicata ) in mainland Portuga l……………51 TIAGO RODRIGUES , ANDRÉ VERDE , JOÃO PEDRO OLIVEIRA & DAVID GONÇALVÈS Summary report on the 2011 Woodcock hunting season in Switzerland ………………………………………..54 PAUL DUCHEIN Woodcocks and cold wave in Italy in February 2012 ………………………………………………….……………..54 SILVIO SPANÒ Recent Woodcock and Snipe publications ……………………………………………...……………………………..55 WI/IUCN-WSSG Newsletter 38 2 December 2012 Editorial The second IUCN SSC Chair’s Meeting was one of the events in 2012 for the WSSG. It was held in February at Abu Dhabi (United Arabian Emirates). This kind of meeting gives the opportunity to meet the Chairs of different Specialist Groups and exchange information. Concerning our species, contacts have been established with colleagues from South America, Madagascar and Indonesia where rare or endangered Woodcock and Snipe species are living. Within the framework of this meeting, a booklet was published to present every IUCN Specialist Group. The WSSG should therefore be more visible for a greater number of scientists and conservationists. The WSSG always shows a great dynamism. Our colleagues from Eastern Europe are very active, which is important for the monitoring on the breeding grounds. A new project on Common Snipe has been launched in Russia to provide a better estimation of its conservation status. As a game species, and because wetlands are threatened in many countries, a great attention must be paid to the Common Snipe. One year and a half ago, the 7 th WSSG Workshop was held in Saint-Petersburg. At this time, all the papers that were expected to be published have been received and most of them have been revised by David Gonçalvès, Andrew Hoodless and myself. We are in the final step and the Proceedings should be available in the course of the coming three months. I hope that you will be satisfied with the final result which is one of the centerpieces of the WSSG activity. I wish you a very happy New Year and much success with your scientific work. Yves Ferrand Coordinator Office national de la chasse et de la faune sauvage Research Department – Migratory Birds Unit 39, Bd Albert Einstein CS 42355, 44323 Nantes Cedex - France Telephone : +33 2 51 25 07 88; Fax : +33 2 40 48 14 01 E-mail : [email protected] An amazing pair of breeding woodcocks found in Sakhalin (Russia) in spring 2011. WI/IUCN-WSSG Newsletter 38 3 December 2012 News from……. BELARUS 2012 Belarus Woodcock Report EDWARD MONGIN , APB-Birdlife Belarus, Lyn’kova str. 17A-22, 220104 Minsk, Belarus E-mail: [email protected] YURI BOGUTSKI , Berezinski Biosphere Reserve, Domzeritsi, Vitebsk Region, Belarus ELENA DAVIDYONOK , APB-Birdlife Belarus, Minsk Woodcock ringing and study of migration were Night ringing trips were carried out 2-4 times conducted in the Berezinski Reserve vicinities per each pentad. High abundance of from the 19 th September to the 25 th October. It woodcocks was recorded during these trips in is the ninth ringing season. This autumn was the end of September and the first pentad of sufficiently warm and rainy. Total rainfall October (Figure 1). Passage dynamics of during September – October was close to the woodcock according to grouped observations last year quantity (92.4/97.1 mm). Light by pentads are presented in Figure 2. The peak ground frosts occurred only in the second half of migration was recorded in the first pentad of of October. Heavy snowfall with further October. temperature reduction occurred on 26 th October. 35 30 25 20 15 Number of contacts 10 5 0 16-Sep 21-Sep 26-Sep 1-Oct 6-Oct 11-Oct 16-Oct 21-Oct Figure 1. Passage dynamics of Woodcock according to records of nocturnal contacts in vicinities of the Berezinsky Reserve in 2012. The black dots indicate days without counts on stationary census plots. This year, 187 contacts were registered during also very high (85.1%). Juveniles of late only 44 hours and 53 birds were caught. The broods represented 40% of the total of mean number of contacts per hour recorded juveniles. Many contacts during ringing trips during the ringing trips was 4.25. It is the and the high value of juveniles probably highest value for the last 8 years (Figure 3). confirm a good breeding success. Proportion of juveniles among caught bids was WI/IUCN-WSSG Newsletter 38 4 December 2012 2010 2011 2012 30 25 20 Figure 2. Passage dynamics of 15 woodcock according to records of 10 nocturnal contacts in 2010 - 2012. Data 5 grouped in five-day % of period mean 5 day per periods. 0 Sep-3 Sep-4 Sep-5 Sep-6 Oct-1 Oct-2 Oct-3 Oct-4 Oct-5 Oct-6 Nov-1 Nov 2 % juv n contacts/h 90 4,5 80 4 70 3,5 60 3 50 2,5 Figure 3. Annual 40 2 fluctuations of the number of contacts per 30 1,5 contacts/hour N hour during ringing trips 20 1 and proportion of Proportionof % juveniles, 10 0,5 juveniles among caught 0 0 woodcocks. 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 This autumn, we ringed 46 woodcocks and 6 rainfall favoured the captures. In total, 397 birds ringed this year were retrapped at the woodcocks were ringed during nine years, same places after 6-29 days. One bird ringed in 2004-2012 (Table 1). Now 39 recoveries of the last year was also retrapped. The catching Belarusian rings have been received from success rate was 28.3%, which was rather France (26), Spain (5), Italy (5), Great Britain more than the last year (24.7%). Moonless (2) and Russia (1). nights, a lack of strong winds and normal N ringed N direct N indirect N direct N indirect Year birds retraps retraps recoveries recoveries 2004 16 - - 1 1 2005 33 2 - 1 1 2006 46 - - 2 - 2007 54 - 1 1 - 2008 40 2 2 4 2 2009 34 1 1 2 2 2010 74 6 2 9 4 2011 54 4 - 2 5 2012 46 6 1 2 - Total 397 21 7 24 15 Table1. Ringing results collected for the 2004-2012 period. WI/IUCN-WSSG Newsletter 38 3 5 December 2012 News from……. HUNGARY Woodcock report from Hungary – Spring 2012 GERGELY SCHALLY , Szent István University, Institute for Wildlife Conservation, Páter K. u. 1., 2100 Gödöll ő, HUNGARY E-mail: [email protected] LÁSZLÓ SZEMETHY , Szent István University, Institute for Wildlife Conservation, Páter K. u. 1., 2100 Gödöll ő, HUNGARY E-mail: [email protected] NORBERT BLEIER , Szent István University, Institute for Wildlife Conservation, Páter K. u. 1., 2100 Gödöll ő, HUNGARY E-mail: [email protected] The national woodcock monitoring points at which at least one roding male was programme, which was started in 2009 observed (positive site) (Ferrand et al. , 2008) (Schally et al. , 2010) continued in 2012. The in each week. It can also be used as an index of main goal of the programme is to collect the spatial pattern of the migration. reliable information about the species in order 3. Temporal dynamics of the rate of high to maintain an adaptive harvesting. We gather abundance sites were calculated for each year. information about the migration of woodcocks These rates correspond to the % of positive in our country based on long-term roding sites at which at least five roding males were survey data. This short report presents the data observed in each week. They can also be collected in spring 2012 compared to the regarded as a spatial pattern concentrated on results of the first three years of the preferred areas. Results may differ from programme. Schally & Szemethy (2011) where the numbers of high abundance sites were compared to the Methods total numbers of listening points. We used Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn’s Roding surveys (Ferrand, 1993) were weekly multiple comparisons test to detect differences performed by observers.