Wash Wader Ringing Group

Friday 20th October

PLI recced Heacham arriving 15:15. Still quite a lot of mud exposed and lots of waders spread along tide edge, including Bar-tailed Godwit, Knot and Oystercatchers with small numbers of other species. By 15:30 100 Oystercatchers already on the beach despite there being lots of exposed mud. As tide came in the grey waders headed south but the Oyks joined the others on the beach by 15:50. Despite a couple walking towards them the birds just shuffled along a bit. Also off the Snettisham beach were large numbers of grey waders (species and more accurate numbers unknown as looking in to sun). The mudflat here covered later than off Heacham but the birds departed south before reaching the beach. Two para-surfers may have influenced this.

On Heacham the Oystercatchers (nearly 200) were well spread out and totally ignored people walking between them and the top of the beach.

PLI then went round to Terrington, looking over the saltmarsh about an hour before high tide. Lots of gull activity and some waders, including Lapwing, on the tide edge. Also on the field alongside the road down to the white barn there was a huge flock of Pink-footed Geese. Despite human activity on the sea wall and at the cow shed these remained feeding.

Saturday 21st October

Recces:- Terrington (PLI); Lots of saltmarsh and no birds on usual cannon netting pools. Wildfowlers about, presumably due to the Pink-feet which were flying inland.
Snettisham North (SLD); No large flock of waders but 200 Sanderling, a bit scattered. These left, mainly heading north. Also 50 Oystercatchers.
Heacham South (SLD/KS); Just 50 Oystercatchers near the tump.
Heacham Far North (KS); 200 Sanderling seen as it got light. Not clear if these are the same ones that were on Snettisham, moving as it got light or a separate flock. Later, CK reported that the number of Sanderling present by 08:00 was 600.

The team mainly arrived between 12:00 and 13:00. Soup meal at base then set off for Heacham South to set four nets well below high tide for a rising tide catch. Got the observers and long-stops in to position whilst there was still a lot of mud-flat still exposed. Shortly after doing this a group of people with 11 dogs managed to evade the long-stops and appear by the nets, some dogs taking an unhealthy interest in the decoys. Fortunately no harm was done either to the decoys or the flocks of birds out on the mudflats. As the tide rose, about 20 Oystercatchers joined the decoys in net two before the mudflats finally covered but many of the grey waders headed towards Snettisham. A thunderstorm blew up and for a few minutes, heavy rain made observation impossible and when it ceased it was found that about 75 Oystercatchers were the Heacham side of the nets as well as the 20 or so that were in net 2. The observers on the Heacham side walked slowly towards the nets to push these birds and the numbers in net 2 increased as further birds walked from the mudflats. Just starting to get a worthwhile number of birds in net 2 when there was a lift-off from there, despite the birds being twinkled staying put. Most of the birds just circled round and landed, more spread out, in nets 1 and 2. With little prospect of improving the situation and the tide still sufficiently low that it was reasonable to fire both nets 1 and 2, did this.

Interestingly, all but two of the Oystercatchers were juveniles and the one already with a ring, also a juvenile, had a Belgian ring.

Dealt with the catch by dark. With the plan being to set two nets on Snettisham North, ready for the morning, where the Sanderling flock had been during the recce, all the equipment was packed up. Getting the equipment from Heacham to Snettisham proved problematical as neither 4-wd vehicle could successfully tow the fully laden trailer through a rather tricky point. Unloading the trailer of most of the heavy gear was the only solution.

Having set the two nets on Snettisham North the various car loads of people found their own take away food in Kings’ Lynn on the way back to base.

Sunday 22nd October

Sanderling was in front of the nets. However as it became lighter it was apparent that the flock was 50 yards nearer her than the nets and, more importantly, the nets were well back from the tide, this having cut. (The nets had been set based on the Saturday morning tide line which in theory was a few inches lower than the Sunday morning tide height. In practice the tide did not even make the Saturday evening tide height which, on predictions, should have been a foot lower than Sunday morning’s tide height.)

Decided to investigate the possibility of moving the nets closer to the tide and twinkling the birds in but, as expected, as soon as a team appeared on the beach the birds left. Hence, plan B put in to operation. A half net set was in FA’s van ready to take to Heacham far North. Hence a team went off to set this whilst the rest picked up the Snettisham nets. At Heacham, c400 Sanderling were indeed present, some on the tide edge but others taking shelter by tide wrack well above high tide. After consultation with CK who was looking for colour ringed birds decided to set on the tide edge. When the rest of the team arrived from Snettisham setting was nearly finished and the Sanderling were in four discrete flocks on the beach. When the tide had fallen off enough to catch, twinkling commenced but the birds preferred to fly into the strong wind and only a relatively small proportion chose to circle back to stay on the beach. For a while flocks of about 50 each side of the catching area but by the time some of these decided to go in front of the nets the tide was too far away from the nets to expect to catch many, if any. Decided there was little point in continuing.

The team collected the net, discovering that one projectile would not come out of the cannon. This was almost certainly because wind blown sand, which had affected visibility from time to time during the catching attempt, had gone down the barrel. As, due to the way projectiles are now fixed to the net, it is impossible to take the projectile off the net whilst still in the cannon, the net with the projectile and cannon still attached were taken back to base. Here various things were tried to shift the projectile including trying to pull it out with a vehicle. Eventually, after a break for breakfast, pouring boiling water down the cannon solved the problem (presumably a combination of expanding the barrel slightly and washing away dirt; cold water to wash out grit had been tried earlier).

All equipment sorted and team away by early afternoon.