Wash Wader Ringing Group

The Extra Sanderling Catch - Thursday 20th October

As a result of poor opportunities to catch Sanderling in future weekends in the remainder of the year, it was decided to make an extra catch. We chose a tide that would enable us to catch some of the wintering population to increase the sample of colour ringed birds and to change the colour rings on a some of the birds marked in 2004.

NAC and JAC arrived at the base at 8pm on the Wednesday to get all the equipment ready and then went to bed before CdF and RdF arrived (sometime after midnight!).

Up at 5.00am and off by 5.20. Arrived at Heacham beach 06.00 to meet the rest of the team. The tide was predicted to be about 9 inches lower than the previous day, but the wind was predicted to pick up to force 3-4, so we set three small mesh nets on the top of a ridge that had only just gone under the previous day. Set by 7.15 except one cable had a high resistance so a new cable was brought to join to it 20 yards from the firing position.

JB, JAC and NAC at the firing position and MS in charge of the team and helping watch from a different angle, with RR as longstop to the south. As the tide rose it became clear that the spit would not cover at the south end, so JS started a slow twinkle towards the net moving the flock towards the 20 in the catching area. As the birds moved along a few Ringed Plovers and Turnstone started to roost on the net and feed in safety.

It was decided to get the Sanderling in front and then try and move the birds in safety. Just as JS got about a third of the Sanderling in front of the nets and spreading on beyond, an uncontrolled dog ran on to the beach by the firing position. It ran along the beach towards JS, bunching up all the birds between it and JS! Just as it got into the first net it decided to turn round and trotted back to its owner. The dog had moved all the birds in safety down to the tide edge and bunched up the flock. JS moved the birds another 30 yards along the beach until they were in front of nets 2 and 3 with most birds between 5 and 9 yards out. At this point we fired. The nets were caught by the wind which had got up to force 4-5 so about 200 beat the net out, but only about 10 birds went into the tide edge. We covered with some difficulty due to the wind, but extracted very quickly into the 16 boxes we had brought. When we had difficulty finding space in the boxes for the last few birds we realised that we had a good catch! All the birds were taken behind the seawall and we processed in a garden that was sheltered from the wind but was a suntrap. Got all the equipment off the beach while the birds were being put into cages. Managed to process all the Sanderling and colour ring 20 for CK's project as well as 10 adult Turnstone. Just finished on time enabling some of the team to get into work for the afternoon. NAC,JAC CdF RdF and JC went back to base for bacon sandwiches and to sort out the equipment. Left at 15.30.

JAC and SD (who was not on the catch!) crosschecked all the data in four hours on Friday evening. With so many retraps, some of which were separated out for colour-marking, it was interesting.