On a chilly Friday evening the assembled team arrived at Snettisham Beach to set four small mesh cannon nets with a view to catching part of the Knot flock that had been seen there on the recce that morning. Saturday morning, however, didn't go according to plan. Upon arrival the flocks were still feeding on the mud but started marching towards the beach in line with the nets with the advancing tide. Suddenly, without warning and for no apparent reason Knot started to leave the beach and a loud whoosh was heard by the team waitng behind the seawall as most of the remaining flock lifted leaving a small number of Curlew and Oystercatcher which were always going to remain well out of range and so the decision was made to pack up and return to base.
On Saturday afternoon a team headed out to Terrington Marshes to set mist nets over the usual pools. This was the first time that I had mist netted with the group so I was keen to learn the ropes and it was interesting to note how much more tension was employed with end poles being triple guyed. Once the nets were set two people remained to keep an eye with the rest of the team returning after dark and once the tape lures had been set.
Walking out on the salt marshes at night is an interesting experience and one with obvious dangers, it is essential therefore, to follow an experienced team member already familiar with the network of creeks that cut across the marshes. Even more interesting is learning to extract Dunlins in darkness without using artificial light of any kind. As high tide neared waders arrived at the pools with increasing regularity and hands became very cold indeed.
Once high tide had past the nets were taken down and ringing and processing teams established to deal with the birds that were waiting in the keeping cages behind the sea wall. A good number of species were caught with several people handling new species for the first time including Derek Beamish from Colin Carter's Kessingland group. After ringing a Black-tailed Godwit and processing a Redshank, new species for me, I helped less experience team members fit F rings on Oystercatchers before joining the processing team to weigh.
Totals - 78 new, (5) retraps
Oystercatcher - 6, (3)
Grey Plover - 1
Knot - 9
Dunlin - 52
Black-tailed Godwit - 4, (1)
Bar-tailed Godwit - 5
Redshank - 1, (1)
Bar-tailed Godwit
On Sunday morning small teams headed off to various beaches along the Norfolk side of the Wash to do some resighting of colour ringed birds. Derek, Sarah Dawkins - the group's fieldwork co-ordinater, and I arrived at Snettisham to find just a few Oystercatchers on the beach that departed as soon as they saw us. On the Ken Hill fields, however, there was a large flock of Pink-footed Geese numbering in the region of 3500 as well as two Snow Geese. Curlew and Bar-tailed Godwit were also present. We headed of to Heacham North which had already been covered by another team but it was good for Derek to get some CR resighting experience although having left his scope at home he had scribe for Sarah and I before it was his turn.
