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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Adam W" data-source="post: 3327202" data-attributes="member: 81080">In any given case you'd of course have no idea whether a bird is a migrant or resident but given the fact that we know the vast majority of the total birds present are migrants then its safe to assume that most birds shot are migrants and the facts and figures mentioned in this thread would seem to very much back that up. There are of course ways of having a good idea whether a bird may be a migrant or not. For example where I shoot i'm near the north east coast and never see a Woodcock until at least the October moon and there's no suitable breeeding habitat in the immediate area so It doesn't take an expert ornithologist to realise that any Woodcock I was to shoot is very likely a migrant.As for your last question well that's a bit like me saying why to birders go searching for rare and scarce birds when they could just go and look at some feral Canadas in the local park. To an outsider that doesn't really get birding then there's little difference you still just look at birds but I'm sure you'd agree that would be somewhat missing the point.</blockquote>