Last Saturday I was heading up to the Wash to join the Wash Wader Ringing Group for their mini week. Not needing to leave until late afternoon gave me the opportunity to get up early and try out my 30' and 40' mist nets at Lound Lakes found between Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth - a local nature reserve owned by Essex & Suffolk Water and managed in partnership with the Broads Authority, The Environment Agency and Natural England. I started volunteering at the site in 2008 and have also held the warden post for a year whilst the incumbent was on secondment.
Lound Lakes - view from bird hide
The only hitch with this plan was my alarm which didn't go off (set to weekdays), so I was on site an hour later than planned which could be partly to blame for the poor catch as I missed the best of the mornings weather. The two nets were erected in rides created for use by East Norfolk RG who provide a ringing demonstration as part of a dawn chorus event held each May. With the rides being located in reed bed and mixed fen target species for the morning were Reed Warblers (Sedge are seldom present), and Whitethroats which inhabit the scrub bordering the mixed fen.
Despite the late start thirteen new birds were caught with one retrap. Interestingly all of the warblers besides the Whitethroats were adult birds.
Garden Warbler Robin Reed Warbler
Totals - 13 new, (1) retrap
Dunnock - 2
Robin - 2
Reed Warbler - 5, (1)
Garden Warbler - 1
Whitethroat - 3
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