Fall survival, movements, and habitat use of American woodcock in ...

2003 Field Season Report · February 2004 9locations. Fixed kernel (50 and 95%) home ranges were estimated using the AnimalMovements Extension (Hooge 2002) in ArcView 3.3 using the error of locational data asthe smoothing factor.Habitat UseWe measured habitat characteristics near (approximately 10 m distant) estimatedlocations of our intensively monitored sample of AHY females. We classified habitatswhere birds were located according to cover type and size class (seedling/sapling 30 cmDBH). Cover types we used were aspen, northern mixed hardwoods, conifer, and mesicmixed hardwoods by size class and alder, upland shrub, willow, sedge meadow, andunknown.To explore habitat selection at a ‘micro’ scale we compared variables betweensites used by woodcock and random sites within a stand. In 2002, we sampled randomlocations within the same habitat types that our marked woodcock were observed in usinga random bearing and distance (>20 m from bird location). Habitat sampling at pairedrandom points was identical to that at woodcock locations and was done twice per week.In 2003, we established paired sites for AHY female woodcock locations using a randombearing and random distance >35 and