WOODCOCK SHOOTING 
F rom the great size of its wings in comparison to its weight the 
woodcock is a strong flyer, and can get up “ full steam ahead ” 
perhaps quicker than any other bird. This great power of flight 
enables it to turn quickly amongst the branches, dart in and out, 
and swoop down a narrow glade; therefore when shooting in 
covert, especially when it first rises, there is no time to lose, 
and one is rather apt to shoot in too much of a hurry. But once fairly 
started, or when flushed in the open, it flies as a rule rather heavily, 
and affords an easy looking shot, though this is not always the case. 1 
have known them fly, even in the open, more like snipe, especially after 
a dark and cloudy night when they may not have been able to get their 
proper amount of food. 
The woodcock, like the snipe, is principally a night feeder; it loves to 
lie in the warmth and dry during the day, and to sally forth about dusk, 
just about the time the lighthouses begin to glimmer along the coast, 
flying or “roding” as it is called, down the same glade every evening 
to some bog or running stream well provided with springs, feeding greedily 
all night, only returning to rest and shelter just at daybreak. By watch- 
ing the various “ roding ” paths of a covert it is quite possible to estimate 
whether they are “ in ” or not, and in what numbers. When they first 
arrive, should there be any heathery moorlands or red -bogs, as they are 
called in Ireland, the ’cock will spread about in the open, very often 
lying just outside the edge of the coverts, and it is only after the first 
fall of snow, or still better, driving hail, that they leave the open and 
take up their winter quarters in the more sheltered coverts. 
That there are certain specially favourite coverts for ’cock throughout 
Great Britain and Ireland is well known, and it is practically certain 
that should they survive the dangers of a shooting season, they will, in 
a great number of cases, return to the same neighbourhood, and very 
likely to the actual covert in the following winter. A fact which goes far 
to support the above theory is that in Lord Ardilaun’s famous covert 
of Ballykine, county Galway, whenever for some reason or another the 
coverts have not been shot in any particular year, the following season 
has invariably provided a record day. 
As to what constitutes a good ’cock covert, there are three indispens- 
able requirements : 
(1) Good feeding ground in the neighbourhood, i.e., bogs and springs 
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