Management at Sherburne WMA helps hunters score each year
In late February, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) Private Land Biologist Brandon Stafford stood on the seat of his four-wheeler scanning for woodcock with an infrared optic. The goal of this nighttime foray on Sherburne Wildlife Management Area was to capture and band woodcocks on their wintering grounds.
Banding woodcocks is something the department does annually to gain valuable information used in the management of this species of gamebird.
Joining Stafford and his crew of biologists was newly appointed LDWF Secretary Madison Sheahan, Assistant Secretary of Wildlife Stephen Clark and Assistant Secretary of Fisheries Ryan Montegut.
Sheahan, as the department’s new secretary, hit the ground running in her first few weeks on the job this past winter. But when it comes to capturing a woodcock in a relatively open field at night with a headlight and net, “more is not necessarily the merrier,” when it comes to people. Nonetheless, Stafford was confident that they would be successful enough to demonstrate and show the new secretary and executive staff firsthand what this type of wildlife management looks like in the field.
When Stafford located a woodcock, Sheahan jumped on the driver’s seat to operate the four-wheeler, with Dr. Jeffrey Duguay, LDWF Director of Game Species Management Branch, climbing on front of the machine with a handheld spotlight and catch net.
Stafford dialed the secretary and Duguay in on the bird’s exact location and off they went to see if they could capture the first bird of the night.
Habitat management
Duguay’s work with woodcock habitat on Sherburne WMA is well-known and documented in a paper he co-authored with James C. Haynes and Kim Marie Tolson, titled, “Enhancing Nocturnal Habitat for the American Woodcock on Louisiana Wintering Grounds.”
Though banding conditions vary night to night, typically, a woodcock will “freeze” when located with a spotlight under the cloak of darkness. Moreover, the low, steady sound of an ATV muffler slowly approaching usually doesn’t seem to bother the nervous bird either.
It’s the clink of a metal-on-metal sound, a heavy-footed approach by the biologist, the net hanging up in a vertical weed when it’s about to be dropped, or someone passing in front of the spotlight creating a predator-like shadow that spooks birds into flight and a missed opportunity. Even weather and a full moon can cause problems capturing woodcocks at night.
At one time, the number of Louisiana hunters who took to the field chasing woodcocks were legion. In the early 70s it was estimated that there were upwards of 40,000 woodcock hunters across the state. According to Duguay, Louisiana’s Annual Hunter Harvest Survey for the 2023-2024 season estimated 4,300 hunters harvested 12,300 woodcocks.
Unfortunately, woodcock populations have been on the decline for several decades and most biologists agree the root cause is habitat loss in both the Eastern and Central migratory flyways. The result of that decline over the years has led to reduced bag limits, where once again for the 2024-2025 season the bag limit will be three birds with a possession limit of nine.
Despite the decline, Duguay said there is still a dedicated group of woodcock hunters in Louisiana. What’s more, he emphasized that although the decline has leveled off some in more recent years, habitat management is the key for woodcock.
What woodcock need
Essentially, woodcock require both diurnal and nocturnal moist soil habitats that are close to one another to survive and flourish. Diurnal habitat differs from nocturnal in that it’s typically made up of dense cover with space beneath for foraging in young forest and shrublands. This moderate overhead cover allows woodcock to move and probe for earthworms with protection while hiding from predators.
By contrast, nocturnal habitat consists of moist soil in more open ground, such as fields, with some cover that woodcock can feed in.
Secretary Sheahan jumped off the four-wheeler. Following some instructions from Duguay, who was still holding the spotlight on the woodcock, she started to slowly approach the bird with net in hand.
Besides domestic cats and dogs, woodcock have a long list of predators that includes crows, hawks, owls, opossums, raccoons, skunks and snakes. Therefore, apart from what hunters think is a sixth sense, they rely on dense cover, camouflage, and eyes that are set back and higher up on the sides of their head providing them with a 360-degree view.
Sheahan, who is an avid hunter and sportsman, crept closer and closer to the woodcock. Just when she was about to drop the net on the bird, it flushed into the darkness leaving the secretary in a contorted position like a baseball player whiffing on a changeup pitch.
Banding information
Sheahan’s swing and a miss didn’t deter her in the least, but instead gave her a resolve to make a successful capture. Growing up working on her family’s farm in Northwest Ohio, winning multiple Big Ten championships rowing for “the Ohio State University,” and working in a career serving in various leadership positions, certainly showed the secretary had some determination.
After a few self-deprecating laughs, she, and the team of biologists, were off looking for another woodcock and another go at it.
Besides migration patterns, banding information also provides other things used in the management of woodcock, like site fidelity, where birds are often recaptured in the same fields one or more years after their initial banding. Birds that are recaptured in ensuing years can provide information on how long woodcock live. Additionally, biologists obtain important harvest information on the wintering grounds.
One of the things Stafford and his team took time to show Sheahan and the executive staff was how to determine the age of woodcocks based on their feather patterns and also how to properly record the data.
Sheahan’s second chance at netting a woodcock was much like the first. After her second swing and a miss, we watched the bird quickly flutter away through the rays of the spotlight into the darkness.
GPS transmitters
Stafford and fellow LDWF private land biologist Michael Sullivan, who accompanied Stafford to help out with the evening field trip, both work out of the Hammond regional office for the department. Their duties include carrying out a variety of wildlife research in their region. Besides wildlife research, they also offer technical assistance to land managers and guidance on federal conservation grants, as well as writing habitat management plans.
One of the things Sullivan was excited about from last winter’s banding efforts was marking woodcock with GPS transmitters.
“Last year was a good year for migration, and with Dr. Duguay and some grad students from the University of Maine, we got to deploy several GPS backpack transmitters on some of the woodcock we banded,” Sullivan said. “We got to track their migration back north all the way to Nova Scotia.
“Banding and GPS marking migrating birds is important. It helps us agencies have a decent idea of harvest metrics to make informed decisions on harvest regulations for the next season. Harvest data, reproduction data and wintering habitat and breeding habitat survey data help us have a more accurate understanding of the population we are managing.”
On the secretary’s third opportunity, Stafford had her change to a net with a much longer handle, where she wouldn’t have to be so close to the bird she was approaching when she dropped the net. The long-handled net worked. Sheahan caught her first woodcock.
Stafford walked the secretary through the aging, sexing and record keeping process of banding woodcock. Once the data was recorded, Sheahan released the bird into the starlit night.
Hunting opportunities
The department notes that Louisiana represents the most important wintering grounds for American woodcock in the United States. Sherburne happens to be one of those critical WMAs along the Atchafalaya River with both nocturnal and diurnal habitats that provides woodcock with everything they need.
The Louisiana woodcock season runs from December 18, 2024, through January 31, 2025. Sherburne WMA, as well as some other WMAs, offers public hunting opportunities for woodcock.
“Besides Sherburne WMA, there’s public hunting opportunities on Dewey Wills, Elbow Slough, Grassy Lake and Fort Johnson (formerly Fort Polk) WMAs, and Alexander State Forest,” Duguay said. “Sherburne is well-known among woodcock hunters throughout the United States. Woodcock management and habitat management in general at Sherburne does benefit woodcock. However, on a population level it likely doesn’t have a large impact, because it is a small amount of management that occurs.
“However, other WMAs are also managed in a manner that benefits woodcock. Although this management isn’t specifically for woodcock, all of the public lands previously listed have habitat management that occurs, which is beneficial to wintering woodcock.”
Woodcock are often flushed and killed ancillary to other hunting activities in the uplands, such as rabbit and quail. What’s more, the more successful woodcock hunters in most cases have dogs like English pointers, German shorthair pointers and Brittany spaniels to help them find birds in thick cover. But that doesn’t mean a couple of slow walking buddies can’t jump a few birds on some of the state’s WMAs like Sherburne.
With or without dogs you might have a few swings and misses when hunting woodcock, but you won’t have anything unless you give it a try.