Alabama biologists involved in University of Maine study of timberdoodles
By David Rainer
February 7, 2021
A small transmitter is attached to a woodcock so the bird can be tracked during its spring migration back to the North. (Billy Pope)
Seth Maddox will head out in February with other Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries (WFF) Division biologists to do some woodcock hunting. Yes, that is after the woodcock hunting season closed on Jan. 31, but Maddox will not be using a conventional harvest tool. He will be wielding a long-handled dip net.
Maddox, the WFF migratory gamebird coordinator, will be on a mission to continue a woodcock tagging program to determine migration routes as well as conduct genetic studies on the birds, also known as timberdoodles.
Seth Maddox will head out in February with other Division biologists to do some woodcock hunting. Yes, that is after the woodcock hunting season closes on January 31, but Maddox will not be using a conventional harvest tool. He will be wielding a long-handled dipnet.
Maddox, the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries (WFF) Divisionâs Migratory Gamebird Coordinator, will be on a mission to continue a woodcock tagging program to determine migration routes as well as conduct genetic studies on the birds also known as timberdoodles.
The woodcock is a migratory bird similar in size to the bobwhite quail but with a long, slim bill. The birds winter in the Southeast, which means Alabama will have a population of woodcock during the winter hunting seasons. As soon as it starts to warm, woodcock head north to their breeding grounds.